On December 7, 2022, at a ceremony at the Aviation Museum in Seattle, Washington, Boeing Corporation officially handed over to the Royal New Zealand Air Force the first basic patrol aircraft P-8A Poseidon, out of four ordered by New Zealand under the 2018 agreement. Already on December 8, this aircraft with the New Zealand tail number NZ4801 (factory number 67017/9449) flew from Seattle to New Zealand, where an official ceremony of its commissioning by the New Zealand Air Force is scheduled for December 13 at the Oeikeya Air Base.
The first Boeing P-8A Poseidon base patrol aircraft transferred to the New Zealand Air Force (New Zealand tail number NZ4801, factory number 67017/9449). Seattle, 07.12.2022 (c) BoeingThe first New Zealand P-8A made its first flight at Boeing in Renton on August 17, 2022 (had a temporary American registration N786DS).
It is reported that the remaining three ordered P-8A aircraft will be transferred to New Zealand by mid-2023. It is expected that the initial operational readiness (IOC) of the New Zealand P-8A will be achieved by July 2023 and that the entire fleet of four aircraft will reach full operational readiness (FOC) by 2025.
Recall that in July 2018, the New Zealand government signed an agreement with the United States on the acquisition of four Boeing P-8A Poseidon base patrol aircraft for the New Zealand Air Force as part of the American Intergovernmental Foreign Military Sales program Foreign Military Sales (FMS). The cost of the agreement was 2.346 billion New Zealand dollars (about 1.6 billion US dollars). In March 2019, Boeing received a corresponding contract from the US Department of Defense for the construction of P-8A aircraft for New Zealand.
In New Zealand, four P-8A aircraft will replace six Lockheed P-3K2 Orion base patrol aircraft, which are in service with the 5th Squadron of the New Zealand Air Force, of which three aircraft remain in service by now. The age of all New Zealand Orion aircraft exceeded 50 years - five of them were purchased new as P-3B in 1965-1966, and one more as P-3B was purchased from the Australian Air Force in 1985. The aircraft have been upgraded several times, most recently by the Canadian branch of the American corporation L-3 Communications in 2005 to a variant designated P-3K2. After re-equipping with P-8A aircraft, the 5th Squadron of the New Zealand Air Force will be relocated from Uianapai Air Base to Oeikeya Air Base.
Earlier in April 2017, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) of the US Department of Defense sent a notification to the US Congress about the potential sale of four P-8A aircraft to New Zealand through FMS. The estimated cost of delivery in the notification then appeared at $ 1.46 billion, but it was reported that this amount did not include weapons and radio hydroacoustic buoys.
The P-8A aircraft received by New Zealand became the 155th aircraft of this type delivered by Boeing. New Zealand became the fifth foreign recipient of P-8 aircraft after India (received 12 P-8I aircraft from 2012 to 2021), Australia (received 12 P-8A aircraft in 2016-2019), Great Britain (received nine P-8A aircraft in 2019-2022) and Norway (received five P-8A aircraft in 2021-2022). The US Navy has so far ordered a total of 128 P-8A aircraft, of which 116 have already been delivered since 2012. In addition, to date, P-8A aircraft have been ordered by South Korea (six units, with delivery from 2023) and Germany (five, with delivery from 2024), and two additional The aircraft were ordered by Australia, and six are under order by India.
The ceremony of handing over to the New Zealand Air Force the first basic patrol aircraft Boeing P-8A Poseidon (New Zealand tail number NZ4801, factory number 67017/9449). Seattle, 07.12.2022 (c) New Zealand Ministry of DefenseDeparture from Seattle (USA) to New Zealand of the first Boeing P-8A Poseidon base patrol aircraft received by the New Zealand Air Force (New Zealand tail number NZ4801, factory number 67017/9449), 08.12.2022 (c) Ministry of Defense of New Zealand
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