Recovered EP-3 Could Be Rebuilt in Eight Months.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: U.S. Navy's EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft

Key airframe components in perfect shape," says Lockheed Martin engineer

I twill take approximately eight months to rebuild the U.S. Navy's EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft that was reclaimed from China's Lingshui Air Force Base in July, according to the airplane manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.

At press time, the company was in contract negotiations with the Naval Air Systems Command, the Navy's aircraft acquisition branch, for the rebuilding of the PR-32, as that aircraft is known. Many of the original components of the PR-32 would be reused, said Mark Norris, a Lockheed Martin engineer who was a member of the group that dismantled the aircraft and retrieved it from the Lingshui air base, located on the island of Hainan, People's Republic of China. The U.S. Navy paid Lockheed $5.8 million for the recovery work.

"We are negotiating with the Navy on a contract to rebuild the PR-32," Norris said during a briefing in Orlando, Fla., at the annual National Defense Industrial Association Testing and Training conference.

He shared some previously undisclosed details about the recovery of the EP-3, albeit under Navy-imposed restrictions on what he could discuss in a public forum.

Among the topics he could not discuss was the status of the computers and surveillance equipment on the E-P3, used to intercept voice communications and radio signals.

Based on the conditions of the airframe, Norris estimated it would take eight months to rebuild the plane, once the contract was signed. Some of the PR-32's major components, such as the wings, "are in perfect shape." But other items, such as the nose, were not recovered, because they had been badly damaged in an April 1 collision with a Chinese F-8 fighter. That collision resulted in the death of the fighter pilot and the near-loss of the EP-3E and its crew. The U.S. Navy pilot, Lt. Shane Osborn, according to service reports, managed to pull the plane our of an inverted dive and executed an emergency landing on Lingshui, where the 24-member crew was detained for 11 days.

Lockheed Martin officials were notified on April 29 that they should prepare to send a team to recover the airplane. The U.S. Navy instructed the company to make sure that it salvaged the aircraft's fuselage, the nacelles, the landing gear, the quick-engine change (QEC) capabilities and other P-3 unique components. The QEC facilitates the removal of the whole engine assembly.

The entire airplane, along with all the equipment used by the recovery...