Quote:
Originally Posted by Llarry
U.S. Navy patrol and maritime reconnaissance aviation
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A bit of elaboration on the last post:
Each patrol squadron (with 6 active P-8As) has 12 aircrews assigned. Each aircrew has 3 Naval Aviators (pilots), 2 Naval Flight Officers (tactical coordinators), 3 enlisted sensor operators and an inflight technician, for a total crew of 9. That's a total of 108 aircrew per squadron; with maintainers and other personnel, the squadron has a total of 270 personnel. See attached photos of the P-8A flight deck and the mission consoles. Note that there are also crew rest seats for long-duration missions.
Each MQ-4C operating location has 43 personnel assigned to maintain and turnaround the assigned unmanned aircraft. That operating location also is assigned 10 aircrews, who may be elsewhere, as satellite communications are used for the aircraft. Each aircrew has one air vehicle operator (pilot), one tactical coordinator and two enlisted mission payload operators. I've been unable to find a photo of the operating console for the MQ-4C.
With three operating locations, the total number of active MQ-4Cs at any one time will be 12. The Navy plans to buy 27 MQ-4Cs to allow for periodic depot-level maintenance or losses.