I am a big fan of Wikipedia, and not one of those who dismiss it due to it’s open source nature. It is what it is, a launch platform in the search for further information. I’ve noticed that most wiki pages dealing with technical subjects, evolve over time and tend to get cleaned up by the thousands of viewers they attract. Errors are challenged, and corrected, references added, and you generally wind up with a pretty good resource to begin your quest for further knowledge. Like I said, I’m a big fan. I quote from it here, all the time.

That said, the P8 Poseidon wiki page you linked to, is a little misleading on the subject of range. Not your fault.

It gave you the impression that “the total range for the P-8 is 1200 nmi”. That figure is not quite right.

The 1200 nm, is the Combat Radius and that means the P8 can take off from base, fly 1200 nm to it’s patrol location, remain on station for 4 hours, then turn around and fly 1200 nm home.

This link from the Royal Australian Air Force gives even more information on that.

But all of that is just about Internal Fuel. (Various P8 versions have 3 to 6 additional fuselage mounted internal fuel taks, with room for expansion)

The real range of the P8 is limited by crew endurance, and lubricating oil for the turbine bearings.

That’s because it is designed to be refueled by a fleet of boom equiped aerial tankers, and can stay aloft almost indefinitely. It has 3 pilots as part of it’s regular flight crew, (Pilot, co-pilot, and 1 relief pilot) and a crew sleep station, just for that reason.

The airframe has also been re-engineered for low altitude, high maneuverability performance.

Yep, I posted here briefly a few years ago. Wanna see my ID?

Welcome back, C, grab a chair next to the fire.

This sounds a lot like the A-10 Thunderbolt story. Piper originally bid to build this plane, and their design was essentially an updated P-51. They reasoned you don’t need a jet to knock out tanks, and a proven prop design would not only be cheaper to build and operate, but would be more suitable for tactical reasons; but the Air Force brass insisted on a jet attack aircraft for the ground support role.

The Warthog turned to out to be a fine performer, albeit very expensive. Too bad. It would have been wonderful to see Mustangs in our skies again.

At the same time period, ’47, ’48, ’49 and early ’50 there were many convoluted contrails high overhead indicating many smaller and larger airplanes maneuvering if not violently at least with some abandon. (I think the advent of the Korean Conflict diverted that activity to the Far East.)

And the chaff, small aluminum strips, was abundant on the ground. As I recall those strips were 3/4″ to 1″ wide and shorter than that used in WWII, about 3 to 4″s long. The Air Force was either lucky or at least suppressed publicity, because very often the bundles of strips did not come undone and one could find clumps of 8 oz to a pound of them rather easily. Those suckers had to hit someone once in a while. The strips, though, were very thin and an 8 oz clump fairly large.

Different times.

Based near here, they got to be familiar old friends flying overhead.