Raytheon is offering to provide the German and Italian navies (and presumably those of other friendly nations) with low-cost maritime patrol planes. The plan is to take old P-3A/B Orions out of desert storage at Davis-Monthan AFB and rebuild them with new electronics. This would produce aircraft that have improvements beyond the current US Navy P-3Cs but cost less. The old airframes have at least 20,000 flight hours left. Raytheon plans to select a new engine, either the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150 or the Rolls Royce AE2100. Each aircraft will need four of these efficient new engines.--Stephen V Cole