By James T. Hammond
jhammond@scbiznews.com
Published July 13, 2010
For a former test pilot of supersonic aircraft, it might seem unlikely that retired Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik would get excited about a lumbering four-engine patrol aircraft that’s four decades old.
But Kostelnik, now assistant commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service, was positively effusive today as he accepted delivery of the service’s first P-3 Orion aircraft that has been remanufactured by Lockheed Martin in its facility at SC-TAC in Greenville.
“It’s remarkable to be here today with an aircraft with a new wing,” Kostelnik said, noting that it had been years since any company had made the wing structure for the plane, many of which were manufactured in the 1960s by the Lockheed company.
The planes, most originally operated by the U.S. Navy for anti-submarine patrol duty, were service-worn from many hours of low altitude flying that generated damaging vibration.
Kostelnik, pictured, noted that the Customs service at one time was forced to ground all of the 16 P-3 aircraft in its fleet because cracks were discovered in the wing roots. Today, kits are being manufactured by Lockheed Martin in Marietta, Ga., and installed on the airplanes at the company’s Greenville facility.
The remanufactured aircraft are a bargain for the U.S. government as well as for other nations that operate the Orion patrol airplanes. The total refit costs less than $25 million per airplane, according to Mark Jarvis, director of design and production for Lockheed Martin’s P-3 program. That compares with the estimated cost of building a new plane with similar capabilities of more than $260 million, Jarvis said.
Lockheed Martin currently has three more remanufactured aircraft in the pipeline for the Customs service and a contract to perform a similar refit on 12 Orion planes for Taiwan.
In total, there are 21 different agencies in 17 nations currently operating the 350 active P-3 aircraft worldwide. Lockheed built more than 750 of the aircraft, many of which are inactive in aircraft depots.
The refitted aircraft are in such demand, Jarvis said, that Lockheed now sees them as “an emerging market.”
“For many nations, this is an attractive option to buying new aircraft,” Jarvis said.
The program is officially called the Mid-Life Upgrade. Officials said the refit could keep the aircraft in service for 18-20 years.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service expects to receive up to 14 of the upgraded P-3s for deliveries planned through 2015. This first aircraft refit was completed in 14 months. Lockheed Martin currently has contracts for 52 Mid-Life Upgrade kits with six operators from six nations.
The Customs service aircraft are operated by the five-year-old Office of Air and Marine, a law enforcement, civilian force that is evolving as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s air and sea enforcement unit.
“This Homeland Security force is still being defined,” Kostelnik said. It is staffed by many former military or military reserve personnel, many of whom operated the P-3 aircraft for the U.S. Navy. Those at today’s ceremony, including Kostelnik, wear military-style flight suits and display their military rank.
Kostelnik and others described the P-3 Orion as literally the long arm of the law, capable of staying on mission for 12 hours, over thousands of miles of ocean, and able to manage interdiction of multiple threats on a single mission. Just last week, Customs service aircraft participated in the capture of a crude submarine built by drug traffickers, who have adopted increasingly sophisticated means of smuggling illegal narcotics into the United States.
