Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) announced Friday morning that it had delivered its eighth P-8A Poseidon spy plane to the U.S. Navy, meeting its contract requirement for 2014. This is the 21st delivery under a contract calling for 53 of the planes to replace the Navy’s fleet of P-3 Orion planes, which first entered service in 1962, just ahead of the Cuban missile crisis.
According to Boeing, the 2014 deliveries were on time and on budget. The P-8A provides the Navy with anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance gathering capabilities. The Navy’s P-3 fleet numbers 117.
The P-8A is based on the 737-800 commercial jet, equipped with a larger wing (from the 737-900ER) and stronger components in the fuselage, landing gear, tail assembly and other components. The new plane also is capable of in-flight refueling.
The Navy increased the current contract total to 53 in February of last year when it added 16 additional planes to its order at a cost of $2.4 billion. That works out to $150 million per copy, compared with a list price for the commercial version of the 737-800 of $93.3 million.
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Boeing also announced late Thursday that the 92-year-old son of the company’s founder died at his Seattle home on Wednesday night. William Boeing Jr. did not work for his father’s company, but he helped create Seattle’s Museum of Flight, where Boeing Sr. had begun building float planes in 1916.
Boeing’s share price was down about 0.5% late Friday morning, at $131.19 in a 52-week range of $116.32 to $144.57.
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