Aircraft: Cheaper – and Better

“Extraordinary, unique!” Attorney General Dick Thornburgh exclaimed of the drug-fighting airplane proudly displayed last week by the U.S. Customs Service. A dazzling new aircraft? No. It was a used Lockheed P-3 Orion, designed in the 1950s. The $31 million turboprop has just one major innovation: a 360 degrees radar dome capable of spotting smugglers’ low-flying planes as effectively as the $48 million Grumman E-2C Hawkeye, which Customs had been using. The Lockheed can stay aloft twelve hours — three times as long as the Hawkeye, which must refuel after four hours.

Customs could have had its plane sooner, but for more than a year the White House opposed its development and the Navy fought the idea because, critics suspect, the Navy is committed to the Hawkeye for carrier operations. Grumman’s overseas sales of Hawkeyes reduce the price the Navy pays. Big sales of the modified Orion could mean higher Hawkeye prices for the Navy.