Yes we have noticed that and two of us have been discussing amongst ourselves. Be interesting to see what the Triton cost will finally come down to.
Hi mate, yes good to see what's happening with the P-8A, and its always good to see a project being 'on time and on budget', but its very rare to see a project reported to being 'on time and below budget' too!!
Hopefully by the mid 2020's there are plenty of P-8A's residing on both sides of the ditch!!
As for Triton, couple of interesting reports this week, one the announcement that they have been granted "positive Milestone C low-rate initial production approval", all good news for the USN and RAAF.
Hopefully we see an announcement in the not too distant future about a more detailed procurement schedule for the RAAF.
But I also saw this too (could it mean cost down or up??), looks like the USN is planning to review Triton procurement numbers, yet again:
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/a...triton-procurement-after-test-and-dep-429907/
The original plan was to procure 70 Triton (2 prototypes + 68 production) airframes.
Twenty (20) airframes would be 'operational at any one time', and the remaining 48 production examples would be 'attrition' reserves (and that was based on an 'estimated' attrition rate of four airframes per 100,000 flight hours).
But then I read that due to improved reliability, the total numbers procured might be cut. And then a little while later it was confirmed that the full production run of 70 airframes would proceed.
Bit of a double edged sword, yes if it is found that attrition is going to be lower, great, probably don't need as many in the first place, but it probably also means that the 'unit' cost will go up rather than down due to a smaller production run.
But it they do cut numbers and the attrition rate ends up higher, then you end up with a short fall of airframes or have to start production back up again, sort of a dammed if you do, dammed if you don't, situation.
Which then brings it back to, how exactly is the RAAF intending to employ the planned seven (7) Triton airframes? How many operational at one time? And how many for attrition reserves? (It will be interesting to see if the RAAF will ever announce how the number of airframes will be utilised and how they will be split between operational and attrition).
If you look at the USN plan (as currently stands), it's roughly 1/3 of the fleet operational at one time, and 2/3 of the fleet for attrition, etc.
I wonder if the Australian Government is going to have an agreement with the USN for the provision of attrition replacements if required?
Sort of like back in the day when the 24 F-111C's were purchased, from what I remember from all those years ago, there was an agreement for up to 6 attrition replacements, which we took up with the four F-111A attrition airframes procured in the early 1980's.
Triton cost up or down? Time will tell!
) I seem to recall that the airforce tried to go down the one trainer track in the late 1960s when the Macchi MB-326H was introduced and it didn't take long to realise that something simpler and less costly was needed for screening and initial flight training.
