AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 282 / 283

Plate 282 of 283 · Modern age · Maritime patrol aircraft

Boeing P-8 Poseidon

Poseidon MRA1 (P-8A), ZP802, painted as ZP802 ‘City of Elgin’, a Boeing Poseidon MRA1 (P-8A) of the Royal Air Force, one of the nine (ZP801 to ZP809) flown by Nos. 120 and 201 Squadrons from RAF Lossiemouth: a twin-engined maritime patrol aircraft built on the Boeing 737-800 airframe with the stronger wing of the 737-900ER, a low swept wing with raked tips in place of winglets, two CFM56-7B turbofans in flattened-bottomed nacelles on pylons under the wing, a swept fin with a bulbous tip fairing and a dorsal fillet, a ventral weapons bay aft of the wing, sonobuoy launcher ports and a sensor bulb under the tail cone, blade aerials and small domes along the spine, sensor pods on the forward and rear lower fuselage and a refuelling receptacle on the crown behind the flight deck: light grey overall with a grey radome with a black tip and bare-metal intake lips, a low-visibility roundel beside the two-line ‘ROYAL AIR FORCE’ title behind the forward doors with ‘City of Elgin’ beneath, a low-visibility roundel and dark grey ‘ZP802’ on the rear fuselage, ‘02’ on the nose and the fin above a pale red and blue fin flash, doors and overwing exits outlined in yellow and red warning chevrons on the engine cowls, as photographed at the Royal International Air Tattoo in July 2022 (shape from Boeing’s own airport-planning drawing of the 737-800, scaled to the P-8A’s published dimensions; the raked wingtips and the underside fit, which no ZP802 photograph shows clearly, come from photographs of US Navy P-8As; the small stencils are left off).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as ZP802 ‘City of Elgin’, a Boeing Poseidon MRA1 (P-8A) of the Royal Air Force, one of the nine (ZP801 to ZP809) flown by Nos. 120 and 201 Squadrons from RAF Lossiemouth: a twin-engined maritime patrol aircraft built on the Boeing 737-800 airframe with the stronger wing of the 737-900ER, a low swept wing with raked tips in place of winglets, two CFM56-7B turbofans in flattened-bottomed nacelles on pylons under the wing, a swept fin with a bulbous tip fairing and a dorsal fillet, a ventral weapons bay aft of the wing, sonobuoy launcher ports and a sensor bulb under the tail cone, blade aerials and small domes along the spine, sensor pods on the forward and rear lower fuselage and a refuelling receptacle on the crown behind the flight deck: light grey overall with a grey radome with a black tip and bare-metal intake lips, a low-visibility roundel beside the two-line ‘ROYAL AIR FORCE’ title behind the forward doors with ‘City of Elgin’ beneath, a low-visibility roundel and dark grey ‘ZP802’ on the rear fuselage, ‘02’ on the nose and the fin above a pale red and blue fin flash, doors and overwing exits outlined in yellow and red warning chevrons on the engine cowls, as photographed at the Royal International Air Tattoo in July 2022 (shape from Boeing’s own airport-planning drawing of the 737-800, scaled to the P-8A’s published dimensions; the raked wingtips and the underside fit, which no ZP802 photograph shows clearly, come from photographs of US Navy P-8As; the small stencils are left off). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.6 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Poseidon MRA1 (P-8A)); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Poseidon MRA1 (P-8A), ZP802 modelled here.

History

The Poseidon MRA1

By the early 2000s the US Navy’s Lockheed P-3 Orions, designed in the 1950s, were wearing out, and in 2004 the Navy chose Boeing to replace them with a maritime patrol aircraft based on the 737 airliner. Rather than convert finished airliners, Boeing builds the P-8 on its 737 production line at Renton, near Seattle, with the military changes, among them a strengthened fuselage, a weapons bay and extra fuel tanks, built in from the start. It uses the fuselage of the 737-800 and the stronger wing of the 737-900ER, with raked wingtips in place of the airliner’s winglets, and the mission systems are fitted afterwards at Boeing Field in Seattle. The first P-8A flew from Renton on 25 April 2009.

The Orion hunted submarines at low level, but the P-8 was designed to do most of its work from medium and high altitude, where it burns less fuel and its radar and sensors see further. It carries an APY-10 search radar in the nose, an electro-optical turret and electronic-intelligence equipment, launches sonobuoys from the rear fuselage to listen for submarines, and carries torpedoes, depth charges and Harpoon anti-ship missiles in the weapons bay and under the wings. The US Navy declared it ready for operations in 2013, and India, Australia, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea and Germany have also bought it; more than 170 have been built.

Britain lost its maritime patrol force in 2010, when the Nimrod MR2 was retired and the Strategic Defence and Security Review cancelled the half-built Nimrod MRA4. For almost a decade allies’ aircraft helped to watch the seas around Britain, and in 2015 the government ordered nine P-8As as the Poseidon MRA1. The first, ZP801, was handed over in the United States in October 2019 and flew into Scotland in February 2020. The fleet is flown by Nos. 120 and 201 Squadrons from RAF Lossiemouth, on the Moray Firth, where a new hangar was built for it, and tracks submarines and shipping in the North Atlantic and the North Sea.

This airframe

Poseidon MRA1 ZP802

ZP802The airframe modelled

ZP802, named ‘City of Elgin’ after the town near its base, is the second of the RAF’s nine Poseidon MRA1s, serials ZP801 to ZP809, which fly from RAF Lossiemouth as a pooled fleet with Nos. 120 and 201 Squadrons and carry no squadron markings. No P-8 is in a museum, and ZP802 was chosen because it is the best photographed of the nine, from both sides, at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford in July 2022. The model shows it as those photographs do: light grey overall with a grey radome with a black tip, a low-visibility red and blue roundel beside the ‘ROYAL AIR FORCE’ title behind the forward doors, with ‘City of Elgin’ beneath, another roundel and a dark grey ‘ZP802’ on the rear fuselage, ‘02’ on the nose and the fin above a red and blue fin flash, and the doors and overwing exits outlined in yellow. Its shape comes from Boeing’s own airport-planning drawing of the 737-800, raised on its wheels to the P-8A’s published height and checked against photographs of ZP802. The raked wingtips and the underside, with its weapons bay, sonobuoy launchers and sensor fairings, come from photographs of US Navy P-8As of the same build, and the small stencils are left off.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The RAF’s nine Poseidons fly with Nos. 120 and 201 Squadrons from RAF Lossiemouth and none is in a museum. The Nimrod and Shackleton before them are both preserved.

All 283 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.