inside a ground-based, full-motion P-8A simulator at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, in Florida. Known as the OFT, for Operational Flight Trainer, the simulator is complete with a “glass,” or electronic, flight deck including high-fidelity touch screens and a head-up display. It involves far more automation than anything Kribs and Klosterman experienced flying the P-3 Orion, a 1960s-era, four-engine turboprop aircraft built by Lockheed Martin. The P-8A, which is replacing the Orion, is a military derivative of the Boeing Next-Generation 737-800 commercial jet and has presented these pilots with a new philosophy of flying—and of communicating with each other—they said. With the aircraft now in full-rate production at Boeing’s plant in Renton, Wash., the Navy’s Poseidon fleet is quickly growing, and training on the P-8A is proving to be an increasingly urgent need in getting crews mission-ready, according to the Navy. That urgency is underscored by the widespread use of the Navy’s P-8As, especially in the Western Pacific. The P-8A’s mission capabilities include anti-submarine and antisurface warfare; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and search and rescue. “Information overload,” is how Kribs described the initial move to the P-8A. The veteran pilot’s 15 years on the P-3 included “front-row tickets to Operation Iraqi Freedom” in 2002— along with Klosterman, who also has flown P-3s for 15 years and, by pure 16 | BOEING FRONTIERS
Frontiers April 2016 Issue
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