[greglepore]

Originally Posted by Robert Coats

Unlike most other military aircraft, the P-8's weapons are in an aft bomb bay or externally mounted on wing hard points.



Sonobuoys used to track a sub are stored inside the cabin, so mission commanders have maximum flexibility to deploy 1/2 dozen different types of buoys at will, depending on the mission profile and changing needs during a flight. An crew member can then load and deploy any style of buoy using a series of airlock-style tubes or a rotary-style launcher so the main cabin can remain pressurized.



Older P-3C models loaded buoys externally in a series of non-pressurized tubes, which was better than the old P-3A/B which had to depressurize to drop buoys, or be limited to a single 'airlock' tube for one-at-a-time deployment and so the cabin could stay pressurized.

Very nice. Forgot you crewed on these. Lived for years under the approach for NAS Willow Grove, they ran a squad of P3's out of there for a long time. Now a paff superfund site.