Navy: Aging P-3s safe despite mishaps

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/0...rions_082408w/

Navy: Aging P-3s safe despite mishaps

By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Aug 26, 2008 6:48:26 EDT

The Navy’s traditionally safe P-3 Orion patrol aircraft community has
suffered six in-flight mishaps this fiscal year — including its first
Class A mishap in at least 10 years. But despite a steady uptick in
mishaps, and the December grounding of 39 P-3s because of fears that
wing sections could break off in flight, Navy and civilian officials
insist the Orion is still safe to fly.

The worst mishap appears to be a late-July incident, detailed on several
Internet forums, in which a Patrol Squadron 1 pilot lost control of a
P-3 after an engine surged during a training exercise near Naval Air
Station Whidbey Island, Wash.

The aircraft dropped 5,500 feet, pulling 7 Gs before its pilot regained
control less than 200 feet from the ground, according to the reports.
The aircraft lost 45 rivets, broke a wing spar and bent its airframe; it
landed safely at Whidbey with its crew unharmed.

Whidbey spokesman Tony Popp confirmed that a Whidbey-based P-3 was
involved in a Class A mishap — an incident that causes at least $1
million in damage to an aircraft or the death of a crew member — in late
July, but he declined to describe the incident because a command
investigation is ongoing.

A second incident at Whidbey, took place in August, when an electrical
fire of unknown origin broke out aboard a P-3 during flight, NAS Whidbey
spokeswoman Kimberly Martin said. The fire was extinguished in flight,
and the aircraft landed safely. No crew members were seriously injured.

In December, the Navy grounded 39 P-3s — nearly one quarter of the fleet
— because an engineering analysis led to concerns that metal fatigue
could cause a midair breakup. The flood of bad news might be more
surprising if the aircraft weren’t so old; the average age of the Orion,
the Navy’s workhorse anti-submarine and patrol aircraft, is 28; some
models are more than 40 years old.
Age, salt, aggressive flying

A former P-3 pilot who declined to be named said the type of flying done
by the Orion is as significant as its age.

Because P-3s fly lengthy missions almost entirely over open water, and
because they often dive to within 200 feet of the ocean to look for
enemy submarines, the aircraft are subject to prolonged exposure to
sal****er, which accelerates aging.

“There are places you can’t see very well or get access to,” he said.
“When you fly very low, you get sea spray. That builds up on the
airplane, especially on the surfaces that crew members don’t normally
reach.”

Naval Air Systems Command spokesman John Milliman said the fact that the
P-3 is based on a commercial airliner that was not designed for military
use could add to structural problems.

“They are yanking it around and doing much more aggressive maneuvering
than you normally would with a civilian aircraft,” Milliman said.

“It’s not just corrosion,” the former pilot said. “It’s metal fatigue.
It’s done a great job for a lot of years, but now they are just plain old.”

Statistics seem to bear him out.

P-3s were involved in six mishaps so far this fiscal year, according to
Naval Safety Center spokeswoman April Phillips. Despite the fact that
there were eight last year, all but one were Class C, the lowest level
of mishap.

In each of three classes of mishaps, P-3 mishaps rates have increased
during the past decade — from zero to 1.23 per 100,000 hours flown for
Class A mishaps, and from zero to 1.23 per 100,000 hours flown for
mishaps involving a serious injury or between $200,000 and $1 million in
damages, know as Class B.

For Class C — mishaps involving $20,000 to $200,000 in damages — the
rate has been higher than seven mishaps per 100,000 hours for four of
the five most recent years. A decade ago, that rate was less than 4 per
100,000 hours flown.

In February, the Navy said it needed $548 million in extra fiscal 2009
funding to fix cracks in P-3 wings and to bolster research and
development for its replacement, the P-8 multimission maritime aircraft,
in hopes of moving up its arrival to the fleet. The funding was the No.
1 item in the Navy’s unfunded “wish list,” which reflects items not
included in the service’s budget submission.

Navy spokesman Lt. Clayton Doss said the fact that the repair money
wasn’t in the budget submission doesn’t mean the Navy is ignoring the
problem. Repairs were put on the list, Doss said, because the budget
already had been completed when the extent of the structural issues was
discovered.

The Navy has begun installing wing modification kits on 10 of the
grounded Orions at its maintenance depot in Jacksonville, Fla.
Modifications are expected to take nine to 12 months, and the first
Orion will return to the fleet this fall, Doss said.

The Navy is moving forward with plans to replace the outer wings of its
grounded P-3s. It has also accelerated its timeline for inspecting every
P-3 for structural damage from every 36 months to every 18 months.

“The wing is the most stressed part of the aircraft,” said Rob Gross, a
spokesman for Lockheed Martin, which has been building P-3 variants for
the Navy since test flights began in 1959. “Some of the stress analysis
we have done has shown that the fuselage is fine. Replacing old wings
zeroes out flight hours, removes all flight restrictions and gives the
aircraft another 20 to 25 years of service life.

The P-8 Poseidon, the replacement for the Orion, will begin flight
testing in 2009; initial operational capability will start in 2013. Navy
officials have not said when the last P-3 will be retired.