— —

Wonderful shot Gerald.

Thank you Ken. They were all parked in ALM pending transfer to museums after being retired as wildfire tankers. They are all spread across the western U.S. in museums.

First produced in 1945. Dozens of variants. Currently used for forest fire fighting in the U.S. Retired from U.S. Navy service in 1978.

Suspect these are former RCAF aircraft. I flew about 1200 hours ASW on these birds from 1965 to 1967 from Summerside, PEI and Comox, BC. Fond memories and great photo.

These are P2V-7s minus the tip tanks.

Excellent! 5*++

2 a turning, 2 a burning.

Funny how in the days we were all excited about jet engines coming into aviation and not having puddles of oil on the ramp, now I am sad to see the piston pounders slowly dying out. I would stop what I was doing every time one of these great aircraft left a tanker base, using every inch of runway and drafting the trees. RIP.

This is a good article covering the retired fleet.

https://fireaviation.com/2018/10/08/final-flights-for-the-p2v-air-tanker-retirees/

There are no more P2V's flying as wildfire air tankers any longer. Along with T-14 & T-44 that Neptune is keeping as flyable heritage aircraft there are only a couple other airworthy P2's worldwide.

Saw them when I lived near Sunport, loved the sound of those powerful radial and turbojet engines.