First flight for Royal New Zealand Air Force P-8A Poseidon.

The first of the four Royal New Zealand Air Force P-8A Poseidon aircraft took to the skies in the US today, completing a test flight ahead of systems fitout. This aircraft will be delivered to Aotearoa NZ later this year.

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The first P-8A aircraft is due for delivery in December 2022, with the remaining three to be delivered during 2023 (Picture source: Boeing)

In July 2018 the Government announced the purchase of four Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to replace the ageing six P-3K2 Orion maritime patrol aircraft that have been operated by the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) since the 1960s.

Of the available options, the P-8A Poseidon was assessed to be the lowest cost and lowest risk option for New Zealand.

The P-8A Poseidon will be a key component of meeting obligations to allies in the Pacific and commitments to monitor and respond to events in the Southern Ocean. It will allow for:

· Participation in international task groups
· Environmental monitoring
· Search and rescue
· Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
· Protection of the Southern Ocean

The aircraft will provide service to other government departments including the Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand Customs Service, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, The Rescue Coordination Centre and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The aircraft have a unique serial number that follows New Zealand Defence Force convention. An important step in the construction of our new P-8A fleet is allocating the tail numbers, which will have the numbers NZ4801 – 04.

Broken down this means:

NZ – the prefix for NZDF
4 – denotes the aircraft’s role of maritime, our current P-3K2 fleet uses a 4 in the same way
8 – this denotes the aircraft type; in this case 8 was available and made sense to use it given it is a P-8A fleet
01-04 – these final two numbers are the sequential tail numbers.

An important step in the construction of our new P-8A fleet is allocating the tail numbers, which will have the numbers NZ4801 – 04 (Picture source: Boeing)