Boeing installs P-8A Poseidon sub-hunter training station at Whidbey Island (Photos)

Boeing has installed a P-8A Poseidon training center at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station as the base gets ready for the submarine hunter aircraft starting in 2017.

The P-8A training facility will include special ground-based flight simulators and classroom-based materials to train pilots and mission crews to operate the maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, its sensors, communications and weapons systems without relying on live flights. It opens next week.

The Boeing (NYSE: BA) aircrew training simulators installed at Whidbey Island have the same configuration as the P-8A aircraft which will be stationed there next year. A total of 42 of the military jets will be based there by 2019.

The Navy has spent $200 million to expand its aircraft hangars at the naval station to accommodate them, according to military officials quoted in The Whidbey News-Times.

The P-8A is a modified version of a Boeing 737 passenger jet, with extra powerful engines to run all the patrol and reconnaissance systems equipment inside.

About 70 percent of the training P-8 crews get will happen at the new center, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Kyle Cozad said in a Boeing news release.

“Integrated, ground-based training is critical to U.S. Navy operations,” said Tom Shadrach, Boeing's P-8 program manager for training systems and government services.

Boeing is on contract to modify and provide updates to the training devices over the next three years.

This is Boeing's second P-8A aircrew training facility. It provided devices, electronic classrooms and course materials equipment at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida where P-8A aircrews started training in early 2012.

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Whidbey Island, has some interesting things happening

https:// www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2016/10/boeing-installs-p-8a-poseidon-sub-hunter-training.html

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