Eyes on new planes in Hawaii
New Zealand is gearing up to spend more than $2.3 billion on four new maritime surveillance aircraft.
The four Boeing P-8A Poseidons will replace the ageing P-3K Orions, which are now more than 50 years old.
Defence Minister Ron Mark admitted to previously being a P-8 cynic but said he believed purchasing the planes was the only sensible option.
New Zealand is not known for its military spending but as tensions rise in the Asia-pacific region, New Zealand is updating its maritime capabilities.
As well as the P-8s, the country’s two frigates are undergoing an upgrade. This was originally priced at $446 million, but $148m was added on last year.
The jump in spending comes as the Government releases its rebooted defence white paper, which makes a clear foreign policy statement, and draws attention to a range of factors the Government believes are threatening the rules-based order – primarily China’s rise.
Critics, including Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman and former Green Party MP Keith Locke, say New Zealand should not be increasing military spending to fund planes with greater warfare capabilities.
Those on the ground say they will be sorry to see the P-3s go but they are past their use-by date.
The P-3s have been around for so long, one person in Squadron 5 (the P-3 squadron) can tell stories of when his father flew the planes. They were supposed to last 30 years, and while they can still functionally do the necessary jobs – search and rescue, fishing surveillance, anti-piracy and antismuggling, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare – the P-3s have seen their best years.
RNZAF Wing Commander Peter Gibson, who is working alongside the US P-8s at the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) maritime training exercise in Hawaii, said the difference between the two aircraft was like the difference between watching a movie on VHS or Blu-ray DVD.
‘‘You’re doing the same thing but you’re using much more modern technology.’’
Walking on to the P-8s is much like embarking on a commercial flight. The body of the aircraft – made by Boeing – is the same as the 737 commercial airliner. But rather than an interior filled with seats and luggage compartments, it has windows built for surveillance, five large screens along one wall, a teched-out cockpit, and row-upon-row of sonobuoys – to be deployed to detect a ship, or maybe a submarine.
The planes, which will begin to be delivered and brought into service by 2023, are known for their submarine-hunting capabilities. And as the waters in the wider Indo-pacific region become busier and in some places contested, the ability to better locate submarines is being seen as necessary by an increasing number of countries.
As China’s aggression over the South China Sea increases, the US and partner nations, including Australia, Britain, and New Zealand – as well as Norway, India and South Korea have chosen to purchase the subhunters.
- The writer’s trip to RIMPAC was funded by the US Government.
The planes, which will begin to be delivered and brought into service by 2023, are known for their submarine-hunting capabilities.