The US Navy P-8A Poseidon, serial/BuNo 169010, is seen approaching runway 13R at Dallas-Love Field after a sortie over the Gulf of Mexico. Attached underneath the fuselage is a state-of-the-art and very secretive Raytheon Advanced Airborne Sensor (AAS) also dubbed Littoral Surveillance Radar System (LSRS). The latter possibly only in use for P-3s (*) .
The Naval Air Systems Command-Flight Support Detachment is operating out of Love Field with modified P-3s and P-8s. Their mission is shrouded in secrecy, but it has been rumoured that they perform, among other operations, drug interdiction missions along the US-Mexico border. The unit of the P-3s and P-8s is called "BUPERS SDC Dallas" and is described as a critical CAT 1A CNO special project unit with detachments at NAS Patuxent River (MD) and NAS Point Mugu (CA). The unit is also known as NAWC-23, a possible fake designation for the unit within the US Navy inventory. This designation is possibly extracted from the Air Anti-Submarine Warfare, Assault and Special Missions Major Weapons Systems, under a 1999 contract number AIR 2.3 of the Naval Air Warfare Center.
Photo credit: Dylan Phelps
It will give some work to John Young to adapt his P-8 model
