A request for information (RFI) that closed
on September 30, 2016 solicited responses
from numerous players in the maritime patrol
business. At the same time, under the Future
Air Mobility Capability (FAMC) project, the
RNZAF is seeking replacements for its C-130H
and Boeing 757 transports by 2023, and it is
possible one or two common base platforms
could fulfil part or all of both requirements.
Although the P-3K2’s mission system is
contemporary, the airframe design is nearly
60 years old and the number of operators is
declining, so spare parts are getting harder
to come by and, as the aircraft age, they
require more maintenance. For example, a
number of incidents have been caused by
failures of windscreen heaters and even the
rebuilt wings are more than 25 years old.
“The end of the P-3’s economic life
is the middle of the next decade if
we’re generous, and we need to have
implemented its replacement before
we can no longer launch the P-3”, Neil
Hygate, programme director of the NZ
MoD’s Air Acquisition Division told AFM.
The P-3 is also no longer the ideal platform
for New Zealand’s needs, being asked to
perform tasks to which it is not best suited:
“Some of these are what in other countries
would end up being done by a coast guard”,
said Hygate. “Because we [the RNZAF] are
the only people [in New Zealand] who’ve got
that capability, we use it for a bunch of things.
Whether it’s the most efficient platform for
that is arguable. There are many situations
where we use the P-3 and it is not efficient.
It’s a big, noisy, expensive military capability
and we are using it for constabulary tasks.”
The FASC solution may be multi-aircraftor multi-platform, with a smaller maritime
surveillance aircraft undertaking inshore work
around New Zealand complementing a long-
range aircraft with ASW and ASuW capabilities.
Defence officials consider it highly unlikely that
FASC will be a continuation of a single fleet or
a life extension of the Orion. It may include an
unmanned or even a space-based component.
On April 28, 2017 the Defense Security
Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified the
US Congress of the possible sale of four
Boeing P-8As and associated support at an
estimated cost of US$1.46bn. The NZ MoDclarified to AFM that this was non-binding
and implied no commitment on behalf of
the government. The MoD said the cost
(which would equate to US$365m per aircraft
without weapons) is a not-to-exceed price
and higher than it would expect to pay.
The full list of respondents to the FASC and
FAMC RFIs has not yet been made public,
but is said to span the spectrum from high-
end military jets to light surveillance platforms.
As well as the Poseidon, contenders likely
include Kawasaki’s P-1, two of which visited
Whenuapai in November 2016 and C-2 airlifter,ASW upgrade for P-3K2
While the P-3K2 upgrade gave the Orion modern
search and data management systems, the
obsolescence of the anti-submarine warfare (ASW)
systems was not addressed until August 2016
when the government announced an upgrade to the
Orion’s underwater intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance (ISR) capability. As then-defence
minister Gerry Brownlee observed when announcing
the deal: “Knowing what is happening underwateris integral to monitoring submarine activity”.
Under a NZ$36m contract awarded to Boeing, acoustic
processing hardware and software derived from the
P-8A will be integrated with the P-3K2’s mission
system. The work will be done during phase servicing
by Blenheim-based Safe Air, beginning in 2018.The P-3K2 retains the legacy weapons fi t of Mk46 torpedoes and Mk82 depth bombs. Twice a year
Orion crews drop Mk82s on the Kaipara land range to improve their bombing skills. RNZAFDuring the RIMPAC ’16 exercise off Hawaii, No 5
Squadron employed four exercise torpedoes, for
the fi rst time in over fi ve years. Defence offi cials
say that a weapons capability will be retained
by the FASC and that there will have to be an
equivalent to the ASRF’s current stores. US Navy
94 // JANUARY 2018 #358 http://www.airforcesmonthly.comRNZAF Maritime Patrol