There is no flying without wings, or so says E. Cobham Brewer in the 1895 edition of the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. With the then-imminent coming of powered flight, the phrase was a new take on an even older proverb: nothing can be done without the proper means.
Putting a twenty-first century spin on that maxim, Lockheed Martin opened its new P-3 wing production line at its Marietta, Georgia, facility on 13 March to fabricate new wings for the Orion fleet. It is expected that these replacement wings, which are built on the original wing tooling with significantly upgraded materials, will extend the service life for existing Orion aircraft by twenty years.
The new wings are the major component of the P-3 Aircraft Service Life Extension Program, or ASLEP. Each shipset replaces the outer wings, center wing lower surface assembly, wing bleed air ducts, and the paddle fittings connecting the center wing box to the fuselage. The upgrade kit also provides new inboard upper longerons and new tailpipe exhaust shrouds for the existing engine nacelles, as well as new leading edges for the horizontal stabilizers.
In addition, depending on the condition of a particular P-3 operator’s aircraft, the ASLEP kit can also be enlarged to include new fillets for the wing/fuselage joint, new wing leading edges, and new horizontal stabilizer boxes. Existing wing nacelles, the Quick Engine Change nacelles, flaps, ailerons, wing tips, and elevators are all reused.
Subcontractors on the ASLEP program include Sabreliner in St. Louis, Missouri, and Middle River Aircraft Systems outside of Baltimore, Maryland.
The makeup of the current ASLEP kit is based on data primarily derived from a full-scale fatigue test program that ran from 1999 to 2002. A consortium of five P-3 operators, including the US Navy, sponsored this investigation. Through analysis and test, it was determined that the fuselage of the P-3—at least from a metallurgical standpoint—has sufficient strength and structural integrity to last the equivalent of four lifetimes, or about 40,000 flight hours.
However, because of the Orion’s normal operational environment—over seawater at low altitudes—the wings and horizontal tails on the Orion were found to be susceptible to metal stress fatigue and corrosion.
The ASLEP wings utilize the same basic wing design that has been proven on the P-3 through close to five decades of operational service around the world. Although there are some minor detail design changes, the biggest change is that the new wings are made from a new aluminum alloy, which offers four to five times better corrosion resistance than the original alloy. Because they offer such better corrosion properties, the new wings are expected to have lower operation and sustainment costs, reduced depot maintenance time, and a significant reduction in unscheduled maintenance actions.
The Royal Norwegian Air Force, which operates six P-3s at Andøya AS, will be the first Orion operator to get the new wings. The first wings to be built will be delivered to IMP, an authorized P-3 repair facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June 2009. IMP, which currently performs depot level maintenance on the Norwegian P-3s, will then install the wings. The first rewinged aircraft is expected to be returned to service by early 2010. Norway’s two P-3Ns, formerly P-3Bs with operator-specific modifications, will be upgraded first. Those P-3Ns will be followed by Norway’s four P-3Cs.
In May, US Customs and Border Protection, which operates sixteen specially modified P-3s for the country’s war on drugs from locations in Texas and Florida, became the second operator to order new wings. Canada, which operates eighteen CP-140 Aurora and three CP-140A Arcturus aircraft from Nova Scotia and British Columbia for maritime patrol and search and rescue, has issued a request for proposal for new wings and are scheduled to make a decision later this year. Taiwan is scheduled to become the newest P-3 operator and will receive stored US Navy aircraft. It is expected the aircraft for Taiwan will require new wings as well.
The recent grounding of a number of US Navy P-3s has brought increasing interest in the P-3 rewing program from the world’s largest Orion operator, the US Navy. US Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead stated in recent congressional testimony that P-3 replacement wings are the service’s number one unfunded priority.
Today the service’s need for long-range surveillance aircraft for missions both over land and over water continues to grow. Rewinging up to fifty-four P-3s is seen as a leading option, and in fact, the service issued an RFP for new wings in late May. Those upgraded aircraft will serve as a bridge until the P-8 Poseidon, the Navy’s choice to replace the Orion, is available to the fleet in sufficient numbers around 2016.
The first set of replacement wings off the Marietta production line is expected to take fourteen months to build. An anticipated eighty-five percent learning curve is expected to reduce wing assembly to just seven months at full-rate production. The assembly line located next to the C-130J production line is sized to accommodate up to twenty-four shipsets of wings per year.
Installing the new wings will take approximately six months. Because the kit assemblies will be installed at production joints on the aircraft, the installation process is not complicated. Lockheed Martin’s P-3 program office in Marietta will provide engineering support for replacement wing installation to all of the Orion depot-level maintenance facilities, including the company’s Greenville, South Carolina, operation; IMP; and, if necessary, at the Navy’s P-3 depot at NAS Jacksonville, Florida.
Jeff Rhodes is the associate editor of Code One.
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