Success, like many things, can be habit forming. For the members of the P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) team that habit began more than a year ago when the contract for system development and demonstration of the MMA was awarded to the Boeing-led team of CFM International, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Smiths Aerospace.

Since then the industry team has evolved into a joint government/industry team that has efficiently completed one milestone after another, establishing a firm foundation on which to build the program.

“This team is doing an awesome job,” said Tony Parasida, vice president of Maritime Systems for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). “The program is on cost, on schedule and performing better than plan, which is something many programs can’t claim at this point in development. “

Immediately after submitting its proposal for the MMA program, the team began working on staffing plans, program processes and best practices from around the company that would position it to execute the program in the event of a win. Boeing clearly had the best solution for the U.S. Navy, explained Jack Zerr, P-8A program manager for IDS. It was the partnering among IDS, Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) and key suppliers that made it possible to offer the capability at a price the Navy could afford.

Just three months after contract award, the Navy conducted a three-day system requirements review (SRR). The meeting concluded successfully with just a handful of action items that needed to be resolved.

“Boeing and the Navy are following the right principles and practices to ensure successful delivery of this weapon system to the warfighter,” said Capt. Joe Rixey, MMA deputy program manager for the Navy. “The minimal action items generated during the SRR bolsters our confidence and readily proves that we’re on the right track.”

The team’s lengthy list of accomplishments include: entry into the low-speed wind tunnel in October 2004; high-speed wind tunnel tests in December 2004; and successful completion of wind tunnel testing one week ahead of schedule, on March 18.

Three subcontractors were on site to help with model changes during testing at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffet Field, Calif. The subcontractors worked shoulder-to-shoulder 24 hours a day, seven days a week with representatives from Naval Air Systems, Boeing and the NASA staff.

The string of accomplishments continued with a successful integrated baseline review in December 2004 followed by system functional review (SFR) in April 2005. During the SFR, which was the second major technical review since contract award, the program received approval from a technical review board to proceed toward the design phase.

“The MMA team was extremely well prepared,” said Stu Young, chairman of the SFR review board and technical director for the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems division. “The technical review board had no reservations about general preparedness to proceed to preliminary design. This team is setting the standard by which others should be judged.”

The team has returned to the wind tunnel to test a new wing configuration unveiled June 2. The team made a minor design change to the wing extension from a blended winglet™ to a commercially-proven raked or backswept wing tip, to better suit the Navy’s unique mission requirements.

A configuration control board made up of representatives from Boeing and the Naval Air Systems Command PMA-290 procurement team approved the change after determining that the new design provides the same efficiencies as the blended winglet, but increases overall performance for maritime patrol missions.

“It’s indicative of the teamwork developed between the Navy and our industry team that we were able to identify a way to enhance the 737’s performance in the maritime patrol environment,” said Zerr. “This kind of design improvement explains why we have a system development and demonstration phase in procurement programs.”

Coming Up Next For P-8A

The P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft team is now focusing much of its energy on preparing for the next major milestone—preliminary design review (PDR). During this multi-day meeting, the Navy will review the entire system architecture and initial design of the P-8A. After PDR the team will be positioned for Critical Design Review in early 2007. Once again, the key to success will be teamwork.

“We know we’re going to have issues and challenges because this is a complex business we all work in,” said Tony Parasida, vice president of Maritime Systems. “But if we can deliver a little bit more than our customer expects every chance we get, we’re going to do great.”