415 Squadron Association
RCAF CP-140 crews have begun P-8A operational training at RAF Lossiemouth
By Chris Thatcher
Published on: February 12, 2025
The process of transitioning Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) maritime patrol crews from the CP-140M Aurora to the P-8A Poseidon is well underway in the United Kingdom.
The process of transitioning Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) maritime patrol crews from the CP-140M Aurora to the P-8A Poseidon is well underway in the United Kingdom.
Last summer, a small cadre of pilots, air combat systems officers (ACSOs) and airborne electronic sensor operators (AESOps), began the Royal Air Force (RAF) P-8A conversion course at RAF Lossiemouth in the north-east of Scotland.
The posting is part of a multi-pronged approach to prepare the members of the long-range patrol community for the incoming P-8A. In November 2023, the government finalized a US$9.5 billion deal with the U.S. government to acquire 14 aircraft, with options for up to two more, as well as associated equipment, training devices, and initial sustainment.
The first P-8A delivery is anticipated in 2026 or early 2027, followed by about one a month through 2027, giving the RCAF a relatively narrow window to convert its aircrews and maintainers, highly proficient on the 40-year-old Aurora, to the more advanced and technology-driven Poseidon.
A Canadian exchange pilot and rear crew observers train on UK Posedion P-8A. They have started the flying phase of the Poseidon Conversion Course.Royal Air Force/U.K. Department of Defense Photo
Most of the training on the new aircraft will take place at Patrol Squadron Thirty (VP-30) in Jacksonville, Fla., the United States Navy’s schoolhouse for several maritime fleets, including the P-8A. The RCAF has space reserved in 10 training serials over the next two years, but an initial cadre of two crews, each comprised of a pilot, an ACSO and two AESOps, is already on the ground for a multi-year posting to learn the training system. The Personnel Exchange Program (PEP) is part of the foreign military sales agreement with U.S. Navy and U.S. government.
Converting an entire operational community to a new aircraft is never a straightforward process. But doing so in such a short timeframe, and while still maintaining maritime patrol missions and exercises with the Aurora, makes this an even more challenging transition. Ergo, the RCAF’s phased approach. While Jacksonville will provide the foundation for aircrew and maintenance technician training, RAF Lossiemouth is serving as the home for tactics development and operational experience with the Poseidon.
The RCAF team there – four pilots, two ACSOs or tactical coordinators (TACCOs) and two AESOps, one an acoustic sensor operator (ASO) and the other a non-acoustic sensor operators (NASO) or electronic warfare operator (EWO) – were selected from across the Aurora community, based in part on their level of experience and where they were in their career and posting cycle.
The aim is to develop a complete understanding of how to employ the P-8A tactical to its maximum capability, and bring those lessons back to the Canadian long-range patrol community.
The first P-8A delivery is anticipated in 2026, followed by about one a month through 2027. Royal Air Force/U.K. Department of Defense Photo
“It is a benefit for both of us,” Capt Darren Kirk, the lead aircrew, said of the partnership with the RAF. “The RAF is going to provide us with P-8 exposure and experience. You don’t want to fly a new aircraft like the old airplane. You have to operate it the way it’s meant to be operated.
“In turn, we get to provide them with people who have three to 10 years of experience in maritime patrol. We’re going to come to the frontline [squadrons] with multiple tours under the belt … with [people] who have decision-making experience and command presence.”
The operational squadrons and 42 Torpedo Bomber Squadron, the operational training unit, are “still in a growing phase themselves” with the P-8A, Kirk observed, which allows the Canadian team to both learn and contribute to aircrew generation.
The RAF only began operating the Poseidon from Lossiemouth in 2020, following the retirement of the Nimrod MR2 and the cancellation of its replacement, the BAE Systems Nimrod MRA.Mk 4, in 2010. To maintain vital long-range, fixed-wing maritime expertise, the RAF posted personnel into maritime patrol units with allies until the U.K government confirmed the acquisition of nine P-8A aircraft in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review.
PCC group photo at the start of their course. Image taken on Sept. 2, 2024. Royal Air Force/U.K. Department of Defense Photo
Learning the aircraft includes new terminology, and even titles that are commonly used by other P-8A operators, such as TACCO and EWO rather than ACSO and NASO.
“We’re trying to have clean interoperability with the rest of the P-8 operators, so we may change some of our [Aurora] titles a bit, but that’s just for ease of allied operations,” said Kirk, an ACSO by trade who did a tour on Operation Impact in Kuwait supporting Air Task Force Iraq and its detachments, including the Aurora when it was conducting overland intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).
Kirk completed his CP-140M operational training at 404 Long Range Patrol and Training Squadron at 14 Wing Greenwood, N.S., served for three years with 405 Long Range Patrol Squadron, returned to 404 Squadron as an instructor, and then was seconded to 415 Long Range Patrol Force Development Squadron, which has responsibility with 1 Canadian Air Division and the Poseidon project management office for the P-8A transition. He arrived in Scotland last July with his wife and two children, ages four and six.
The other members of the team have similar operational and/or instructing experience and have been drawn from across the operational squadrons in Greenwood and 19 Wing Comox, B.C., as well as from the training system and tactics unit.
Four of the team – one pilot, two TACCOs, and one ASO – are on the Poseidon conversion course, serial 13, that began in August. In January, two pilots and a NASO began serial 14. Another pilot will be joining the team for serial 15, which starts in May or June timeframe.
The conversion course consists of a foundation phase, equivalent to ground school, where aircrew learn the aircraft and how to operate every mission and weapon system. The phase is facilitated by civilian instructors from Boeing Defence U.K., many of whom served on the Poseidon.
“They’ve been P-8 from day one,” Kirk noted. “They represent, in my limited exposure, probably the largest experience pool that is out there.”
In November 2023, the government finalized a US$9.5 billion deal with the U.S. government to acquire 14 aircraft, with options for up to two more. Royal Air Force/U.K. Department of Defense Photo
The team then embarks on the applied phase, led by uniformed instructors, where all trades in the aircraft learn to operate tactically as a crew.
The first Canadian to fly in the P-8A was Capt Matthew Bonneville, who participated in an observer flight as a TACCO on November 26, 2024. Capt Robert Laniel became the first pilot to fly the P-8A on the conversion course two days later. The first tactical full crew flight, a baseline maritime ISR sortie, was conducted in mid-January.
Upon arrival at RAF Lossiemouth, RCAF members join 42 Squadron to complete RAF conversion training to become qualified on RAF equipment prior to starting the P-8A type course. The squadron is also home to E-7 Wedgetail training, beginning this year.
“We do all the pre-employment training, converting to their weapons, their gas masks,” Kirk explained. “All the stuff that you always have to do for training purposes, we’re going to convert over to the Royal Air Force equivalent.”
Upon graduating the P-8A operational conversion course, the RCAF team will be placed with aircrews in the RAF’s P-8A operational squadrons at Lossiemouth, 120 Squadron and 201 Squadron, for a three-to-four-year tour “to gain operational exposure,” he said.
While demand is high at 415 Squadron and in the Canadian Multi-Mission Aircraft project office for information about P-8A tactics and operations, Kirk said the current focus is on the task at hand – learning the aircraft and the specifics of RAF missions. Once the team members are assigned to operational squadrons, the priority will shift to understanding how operations manuals and tactics, techniques and procedures might be adapted to Canadian requirements, especially in the Arctic.
“We need to look at what the RAF has done, what other P-8A nations have done, and say, ‘What do we need to focus on in terms of certification for the High North or other specific requirements,’” he explained. “It’s to try to identify those [Canadian aspects], so that we can put a focused emphasis on what needs to be examined.”
The actual transition to the P-8A from the CP-140M has been relatively smooth, Kirk observed. “If I think about when I was learning the Aurora for the first time, and now learning the P-8A the first time, it’s all very similar.”
The progressive block upgrades of the Aurora Incremental Modernization Project introduced CP-140 crews to advanced sensor suites, datalinks, and beyond-line-of-site communications, but the aircraft has “reached its max potential.”
Royal Air Force/U.K. Department of Defense Image
The Poseidon, by contrast, is a flying networked computer. “It’s stable. It seems to work when you turn it on every time.” And it’s still early in its development, he noted. “The way the P-8 development is working is that it’s still being brought up to the original start point [envisioned] by the U.S. Navy and Australia, the two original partners.”
The P-8A sensor suite is not only far more advanced than the Auora, but the communications system is also 100 times the bandwidth, essential for a multi-static active array system able to triangulate targets that can be shared with allies.
The greatest challenge for the RCAF might be finding and training enough avionics technicians. “It’s a real big paradigm shift,” said Kirk of the mission systems, enhanced sensors, and networking capabilities.
Gaining access to the RAF’s lessons learned will be “invaluable” to developing Canada’s capabilities, he suggested. “The RAF support is key to our rapid and safe transition from one aircraft to another. The training and operational exposure will allow us to incorporate best practices and apply lessons learned.”
In fact, the overture to send RCAF members to the U.K. came from former RAF exchange officers, who welcomed them to the P-8A club and proffered support. “It was a very coalition, very allied, very friend- type response,” said Kirk.
He would like to see the return of maritime patrol exchange officer positions with the RAF. “The benefit of these programs is that you get to see how someone else does something and share ideas. You keep that interoperability piece going, and you need that to be able to work effectively together. I would like to see the permanent [P-8A] exchange revival.”