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http://www.defensenews.com/articles/sta ... -to-Norway
The US State Department has cleared a sale of five P-8 maritime surveillance aircraft to Norway.
The potential sale, with an estimated value of $1.75 billion for prime contractor Boeing and its partners, still needs to be cleared by Congress.
But no opposition is expected, given Norway’s increasing role as a partner for the United States and United Kingdom in monitoring Russian activity in the north Atlantic.
In addition to the planes, the planned buy covers a large collection of equipment, including radios, radar, missile warning sensors and 2,000 AN/SSQ-125 Multi-Static Active Coherent Source Sonobouys, launched from the plane to help track submarines.
Norway has operated a fleet of P-3 aircraft, Boeing’s predecessor to the P-8, since the 1960s, and it was vital for Norway to modernize that capability, said Norwegian defense minister Ine Eriksen Søreide.
She added that there is great potential for Norway to work with the United Kingdom, which is also procuring P-8s, both in operational terms and in procurement.
“We just signed an agreement with the UK…on doing a lot of cooperation on both the F-35 and the P-8s,” Søreide said.