Lockheed P-2 Neptune (A89273)

Super plane... at sea

Old timers told me P2V had "Sniffer", a sensor that smelled for diesel exhaust over the ocean at night. When subs would surface to charge batts.
2 turning, 2 burning. MAD boom in the tail was a very sensitive magnet that alerted when passing over a sub.

I remember the good old days when NAS Brunswick Maine had a squadron or two. Fun watching them come and go.

Loved seeing them coming in for landings at NAS Brunswick. Grew up not too far from there and would go to the air show each year. Family loved it. Son flies for Horizon now-Q-400.

About 10 SP2E & H models stationed at NAS Olathe in the 60's. Those R-3350s were sweet sounding. The little J-34 made her jump off the ground on TO.

The US Army Security Agency had 6 of them at Cam Ranh air base in South Vietnam in the late 60s-early 70s. Our squadron was called Crazy Cat and our call sign was Catspaw followed by the last three numbers on the tail. Ours were SP2Es (P2V-5). One of them (131485) is preserved at Ft. Rucker Alabama.

Why those rear fuselage windows?

The rear windows were probably for observer stations like we had in the P-3's. Remember that part of the maritime mission is surface surveillance.

By the way, the P-3A also had the "sniffer" but in the three years I was in VP-8
(1970-1973)I don't recall ever hearing of a crew actually using it.

Beautiful dash 7, can tell by the cockpit bulge on top. I flew in the dash 5's out of Brunswick for a coupla years. The tail extension was the magnetometer head used to detect metallic objects under water such as a sub hull. notice on top of fuselage where the twin fifties used to be. the bulge was a two megawatt search and homing radar. the two j-34's gave the twin r3350's extra boost especially on some of the little , including gravel such as yan mayan island, runways we had to operate out of. The r335o's were turbo compound, had power recovery turbines and aic water injection capabilities.
great obstacle take offs, controllers would request it. windows for using k-20 camera, drop smoke bombs, observation, would open inward. don't ever remember a sniffer. even had a small kitchen stove behind the radio house cause patrols were long and the ordenance man was usually the cook.
And yes I remember Brunswick, great small town, great pizza and hot dogs with celery salt. Pretty cold though. Love the aircraft tough and reliable.

I remember seeing similar Lockheed Neptune aircraft stationed at RAAF Richmond in 1958 when I was about ten years old. They fascinated me and set my interest in aircraft from that time.

This beautiful ole gal is one of three Neptunes that are part of the HARS Museum in Albion Park NSW Australia.Out of the other 2 one is no longer airworthy but is kid proof hahha. The last Neppy is almost back to airworthy stage again and was recovered from Tahiti in 1989.

Was stationed at NAS Brunswick in 1961 in the tower building radio shack and loved watching the P2V's taking off and landing

Nice! I remember working on those birds while on the Lockheed mod line at Burbank during my apprenticeship.