MMA - Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft

Wings of Gold, Summer 2004

The aircraft that will ultimately relieve the enduring and work horse P-3 Orion for ASW, maritime patrol, reconnaissance and related missions will be the Boeing Company's jet-driven 737-800, modified for Navy requirements. (Boeing is partnered with Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Smiths and CFM for the project.) The decision to acquire this aircraft was announced in June and the program entails a price tag of about $40B. The MMA will support those units which comprise the Sea Power 21 concept of operations: carrier strike groups, surface/submarine action groups and expeditionary strike groups. The first squadron equipped with the MMA is expected to stand up in 2012.

The Orion has been a major fixture in the fleet for more than four decades and has been upgraded many times to meet the challenge of increasing threats and new technology. It has demonstrated a remarkable versatility in adapting to different missions over the years. Most recently it conducted surveillance and targeting missions overland in Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, the age of the aircraft, its cost of operations (the MMA is predicted to operate at approximately $3,000 less per flight hour than the P-3), the need to meet technological challenges expected in the near and distant future and other factors dictate its ultimate retirement.

Like the Orion, the primary mission of the MMA will be ASW. Interestingly, 42 nations operate submarines today and many of them feature the silence of diesel electric propulsion.

Timothy Norgart is the director of the Boeing MMA program and a former tactical coordinator and mission commander in P-3s. He also commanded Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing Ten at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. Norgart noted, "To design a single all-purpose sensor for anti-submarine warfare has not been done to date and will not be done in the foreseeable future. There is no single end-all sensor for ASW. A variety of sensors is required to give an airborne weapons system the vantage over a silent sub-surface target and the changing environment in which it operates. Such an array of sensing equipment is known in ASW circles as the "full tool belt."

He added, "In the last several years new technologies in acoustic processing, the dramatic increase in computing power, and the development of advanced tactical planning and auto detection aides have brought forward capabilities never before seen and not available on legacy platforms today. All of the sensors and systems that will make MMA the system of choice for the ASW mission also happen to make it a superior system for many other missions, thus the term Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft. But the MMA will not abandon the newly practiced missions of the P-3. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance will be a specialty of this extremely sophisticated, sharp and unblinking eye in the sky....The aircraft will collect acoustic, electronic, radar, electro-optic and photographic intelligence during overt and covert ASW, surveillance and reconnaissance operations."

The MMA fits well into the network-centric environment of today's Navy. It will be interoperable with joint, national and coalition forces, serving as a command, control and communications (C3) node in the network-centric C4 (command, control, communications and computers) environment. The MMA will disseminate a comprehensive and timely picture of the undersea and surface battle space.

Noted Nogart, "This picture will be fused with data from on board and off board sensors. The result will be competitive and provide military advantages on the battlefield....The MMA will pass fused and raw data to strike groups, joint task forces, joint and Navy command centers and strike assets."

The MMA will be able to search for, detect, locate, classify and track and identify subsurface targets. It could function as a "gate guard" at strategic choke points or in the vicinity of harbors, to deny or regulate access to the ocean. It will also link with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) which will comprise another element in the "tool belt" for a broad range of intelligence gathering.

Plans call for the MMA to be manned by a crew of nine, clown from twelve in the P-3. Its weapons bay will accommodate torpedoes, air to air surface missiles and underwater mines. It will also have wing stations for missiles and other weapons. Because Boeing's 737s are flown by numerous countries around the globe, the Navy will have access to maintenance support centers in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Currently, these centers facilitate spare parts distribution for more than 10,000 Boeing aircraft worldwide. This could constitute savings of $60M a year for the Navy. Moreover, the goal for the manufacturer is to achieve or exceed the 90 percent aircraft available rate required by the Navy.

This modern jet aircraft should bring state-of-the-art warfighting capabilities to our patrol and surveillance forces, and continue the tradition the P-3 built in the past.