Is this aircraft keeping us safe from nuclear Armageddon? P-3 Orion

during the Cold War and still to this day the greatest threat to Global Security is not on land or in the air rather it is in the largest Battlefield on Earth the ocean lurking underneath the waves are strategic missile submarines each carrying enough nuclear Firepower to end civilization as we know it silent and hidden from most forms of detection these behemoths Patrol under the waves awaiting the order to launch Armageddon and are referred to as Boomers given their immense threat one of the most important tasks for our Armed Forces is to know where these submarines are located at all times in fact an entire type of War fighting has been developed to track these deadly ships known as anti-submarine Warfare or ASW this is a branch of underwater warfare that uses surface warships aircraft and even other submarines to find track deter damage and even destroy enemy submarines ASW is therefore a networked multi-layered process consisting of many different components however there is arguably one aircraft that embodies the ASW and Patrol Mission better than any other asset the Lockheed P3 Orion a purpose-built maritime Patrol aircraft capable of ASW reconnaissance and of course Maritime Patrol the Orion carries numerous sensors to detect submarines including passive and active sauna boys which are launched from the lower fuselage along with the magnetic anomaly detector boom in the rear fuselage offensively the Orion can engage targets by using Torpedoes depth charges agm-65 Mavericks Harpoon anti-ship missiles and even low-yield tactical nuclear weapons the P3 has been in continuous service for 60 years with over 750 examples built today we will take a look at the development operational history and Legacy of the stalwart airframe the crews who flew them and the various development teams who work to keep the Orion upgraded with the latest tech the Cold War the U.S Navy's ASW aircraft which included p2v Neptunes and carrier-based Grumman s2f trackers had good sensors for Russian submarine detection but all the data generated from various sensors on board the aircraft had to be manually recorded and analyzed by the crew which as one can imagine was time intensive by 1957 with the proliferation of nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines the US Navy put out a request for proposals for a new ASW aircraft this new land-based type would replace both the Lockheed P2 Neptune and the Martin P5 Marlin the Marlin was a more conventional design powered by two right r-3350 engines each engine consisted of a twin row supercharged air-cooled radial design with 18 cylinders the p2v Neptune however was more unconventional featuring another variant of the aforementioned right r3350s the Neptune also made use of a pair of Westinghouse j-34 4we 34 turbojet engines not many aircraft had both piston propellers and jet engines two burning and two turning as they used to say this place the Neptune in a distinct class of aircraft the Neptune was introduced into service in 1947 and served with various militaries into the mid-1980s however the Neptune's interior space was too cramped for long missions and left little room for advanced sensor equipment hence the 1957 proposal by the Navy initially designated project a new for a new program the symbol chosen to represent the project was the sum of Integrations which will make sense in a minute Lockheed developed would ultimately become the Orion which had three times the interior floor space as compared to the p2v Neptune this was due in part to the Neptune's wingspar which ran through the fuselage the Orion was derived from the 1950s era for engine turboprop l-188 Electra airliner itself the first large turboprop airliner built in the United States the base airframe was converted to be used as a maritime Patrol aircraft and the resulting type was given the P3 designation the most obvious feature between the Electra and the Orion is the distinctive Stinger or tail boom which is used for submarine detection more on that later other differences from the Electra include a shortening of the fuselage forward of the Wings by about seven feet a more pointed nose radome weighing hardpoints for mounting Ordnance a Bombay and various other structural improvements the additional interior space introduced in the P3 permitted for advanced onboard computers and sensor equipment to be integrated into the aircraft this helped make the Orion the first aircraft ever to use computers to integrate multiple data inputs from sonar Sono boys and various other instruments hence the sum of Integrations logo powered by four Allison T56 turbo props the Orion is capable of top speeds of 411 knots allowing it to keep up with or sometimes fly faster in some configurations than other slower jet-powered aircraft such as the S3 Viking or the A-10 Thunderbolt incredibly each Allison t-56 generates 4910 shaft horsepower which is more than the combined horsepower delivered by the four right Cyclone engines found on World War II B-17 bombers early versions of the v17 generated about 4 800 horsepower combined initially designated p3v1 the first Squad is to receive the new aircraft were vp8 and vp44 at NAS Patuxent River in 1962. in the same year the U.S military converted to a unified designation system for all services and the aircraft was renamed the P3 Orion undoubtedly one of the Orion's greatest assets is its extensive onboard sensor Suite given its large size and lengthy loader times the Orion can stay on station collecting sensor data long enough to detect and track submarines this is accomplished in several ways a principal instrument used in tracking submarines by P3 Crews arsano boys which are fired from a lower aft fuselage dispenser section as commanded by the taco Commander each Sona boy is about 5 inches in diameter and about three feet long that are ejected in canisters which float down via a parachute upon impacting the water the Sona boy deploys leaving an inflatable surface float with a radial transmitter for communication with the aircraft while one or more hydrophone sensors along with stabilizing equipment descend below the surface to a selected depth that is variable depending on environmental conditions and the search pattern in this way a pattern of Sono boys can be deployed over an area that is suspected of containing a submarine or over a previously tracked submarine's last known location the crew onboard the Orion receives the acoustic data from the Sono boys and analyzes a pattern with known submarine types and their respective acoustic signatures there are both passive Sono boys which listen for submarine sounds and active sauna boys which emits sonar pulses that listen for a return When the pulse bounces off of the submarine remember that distinctive tail boom we mentioned earlier located in the AFT fuselage the Orion also makes use of a magnetic anomaly detector or mad this instrument is used to detect minute variations in the Earth's magnetic field the kind that a submarine operating near the surface would exhibit due to the sensitivity of the detector electromagnetic noise can interfere with it so the detector's place in the p3's fiberglass tail Stinger or mad boom this positions it far away from other electronics and ferrous metals on the aircraft operationally the Mad system was used to get a tactical fix on the submarine once it was localized by sauna boys the p3s within flight an altitude of about 200 feet during the day were 300 feet at night and typically a Cloverleaf patter was flown to hone in on the submarine's signal this involved performing 45 degree banks at low altitude while pulling some G's once a contact was located the car would be mad man madman at this point the Orion could engage a sub if necessary additionally early p3s use searchlights for nighttime ocean surface missions which would later be replaced by triple LTV or low light level TV and eventually flear forward-looking infrared while the p3a and B models were groundbreaking the p3c is by far the most successful variant in 1969 vp56 received the first operational p3cs followed closely by vp49 and while vp49 deployed first with their p3cs it was vp56 that showed the latest version of the Orion to the world during its operational lifetime the p3c underwent three major updates updates 1 and 2 use the aqa7 processor which would burn patterns of the acoustic signals received from sauna boys onto thermal or fax paper onboard printers would turn out these acoustic plots as they were obtained and the crew would write notes and compare Pages aside from the delay in receiving information and updates the combination of thermal paper being printed sailor smoking and 12-hour missions created an environment that was less than pleasing to the olfactory system fortunately as technology advanced there was relief on the horizon PCC update 3 was the most significant upgrade for the Orion program this update brought tremendous improvements in acoustic processing Sona boy receiving and brought the Orion into the digital age onboard thermal printers were replaced with digital systems that could display acoustic signatures in real time providing Orion cruise with a vastly improved analysis and data collection the aqa7 was replaced with an IBM uys1 and included multi-function displays which could be used to update an image zoom in smooth the signal for analysis and even investigate a signal from different angles update 3 also allowed the Orion to equip the agm-84 Harpoon missile giving the P3 even more strike and standoff options direct communication with Asana boys was also possible by a manual entry panel what you and I would call a keyboard incredibly this digital upgrade began all the way back in 1974. when few people knew what a microprocessor even was the overall project was in development from 1975 to 1980 which was Then followed up by a rigorous testing cycle Central to all the orions updates and especially update 3 was the Naval Air Development Center or nadc located in Warminster Pennsylvania along with an active Runway and Air Base nadc featured fully operational crew stations in their labs this allowed for extensive testing and refining of control layouts workflows and responses to simulated signals Navy crews are also trained here prior to performing their actual duties in a P3 while in flight essentially nadc was the development integration laboratory for the P3 Orion program therefore it could not be understated how crucial nadc was to the Orion's success and Legacy by 1980 update 3 was ready to move into its next test cycle which involved operational evaluations this rigorous testing program took place at NAS Patuxent River and was largely conducted by Fleet Navy air Crews after four years of intense testing and tracking real world targets update 3 was approved for ioc or introduction to operational capacity in 1984. a single Patrol Mission can last 10 to 12 hours sometimes this involves patrolling large sections of the ocean or a 20 by 50 mile area where sauna boys are deployed and the Magnetic anomaly detector are used to find identify and track submarines during these long Patrol sorties the number one engine would be shut down to save on gas located on the left side of the airplane the number one engine is the primary candidate for loiter shutdown since it has no generator additionally engine 1 shutdown also improves visibility from the AFT Observer station on the left side of the aircraft p3s would launch and Patrol routinely in weather that would ground other aircraft these Patrol sorties had to run as they were literally a matter of National Security furthermore the p3's patrol efforts were absolutely critical to the National Intelligence Center in Washington as the locations of all Soviet ballistic missile Subs had to be known at all times indeed if tracking was lost on a single submarine some B-52 Crews would immediately be placed on alert part of the standard integrated operations procedure itself a part of psyops the thinking was that if a ballistic sub went dark it could be the Prelude to World War III however it wasn't just submarines that orions would track or investigate rigging a ship sometimes Orion Cruz would conduct low-level photo passes over ships a typical procedure was to fly down the port side of a Target ship at about 200 feet then execute a 270 degree turn and fly past the start of the ship another turn would produce a pass along the starboard side of the ship followed by a final pass directly over the ship during these passes the crew would note the sequence of the smokestacks and gun emplacements to determine the type of ship this practice became known as rigging a ship and hails from the days of the sailing ships rigging ships is essentially a form of intelligence gathering typically while rigging a ship emission controls or m-con was practiced meaning that all radar and electronics were turned off to surprise the Soviets sometimes the Soviet ships would train guns or shoot flares at the p3s during these passes the Orion crew members had to be familiar with numerous ship Silhouettes and characteristics one example of a mnemonic device was winnipac Square Stacks guns in the back equals krivak AKA a Soviet frigate and while p3s have operated in every ocean in the world there is one area which historically has embodied the importance of ASW the bodies of water between Greenland Iceland and the United Kingdom commonly referred to as the GI UK Gap this area of the world forms a natural Naval choke point and represented the only available Outlet into the Atlantic Ocean for Soviet submarines operating from their bases in the cola peninsula naturally this area was extensively patrolled by Naval and air assets of various Allied nations with p3s contributing long patrols covering large areas typically the Greenland Iceland Gap would be the route used by the Soviet Boomers who were departing from the cola Peninsula Orion Cruz would locate and track these Subs as they transitioned out into the North Atlantic at the height of the Cold War P3 crews could expect to be on top of a ballistic missile submarine every day in the GI Gap these were actual ballistic missile submarines the real deal not many roles in the military have you face to face and within weapons range of your enemy on a daily basis for the Orion Cruise each day in the Cold War could have turned hot at a moment's notice and before we move into the remaining operational history of the P3 we need to take a look at the crews themselves a typical Orion compliment would consist of 12 Personnel five officers and seven enlisted these Crews endured incredibly long missions and how to count on each other constantly not only for Optimal Performance but for their very survival naturally the crews formed bonds to the point of becoming a family indeed many P3 crew members remain in touch long after their Navy Patrol days have ended it is a testament to the dedication and integration that these Crews participated in to keep us safe aside from continuously patrolling the oceans of the world Orion aircraft and Crews have participated in some way in nearly every combat theater since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. during the Vietnam war p3s took part in missions such as operation Market time in an effort to stem the supply of materials to the Viet Cong by sea in that conflict a couple of p3s were lost to AAA fire and other combat related losses during the first Gulf War a p3c using an aps-137 inverse synthetic aperture radar or isar performed Coastal surveillance along the Iraq and Kuwait borders and provided pre-strike reconnaissance on enemy military installations as a result 55 of the 108 Iraqi vessels that were destroyed during the conflict were targeted by p3c aircraft given the p3's long loiter times the Orion's mission was expanded in 2000 to include land and sea Battle space surveillance this proved to be an invaluable asset during operations Iraqi freedom and enduring Freedom the Orion's ability to instantaneously provide information about the Battle space it can see to ground troops is crucial particularly to the U.S Marines Navy p3s also operated out of Kandahar conducting Overland intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance tasks in support of Coalition troops in Afghanistan orions also participated in Maritime surveillance missions over Libyan Waters to enforce the no-fly zone in 2011. during operation Odyssey Dawn a P3 engaged the Libyan vessel Victoria after it fired on Merchant ships in response the Orion fired agm-65 Mavericks at the Vittoria resulting in the beaching of the vessel additionally Orion's in service with Spain Portugal and Japan have also participated in anti-piracy operations in and around Somalia at its height the U.S Navy's P3 Community consisted of 24 active duty Fleet Patrol squadrons that were based out of stations in Florida and Hawaii as well as bases which formerly had P3 operations in California Maine and Maryland this 1994 aircraft allocation map shows the home bases of the active training and Reserve squadrons the training of P3 Crews was conducted by vp30 in Florida for the Atlantic Fleet and the since the activated vp31 in California for the Pacific Fleet by 1995 the Navy planned to reduce the number of active duty Patrol squadrons from 16 down to 13. leaving seven on the east coast and six on the West Coast this led to the disestablishment of Patrol Squadron 17 23 and 24. as a further Force reduction the remaining squadrons would each operate eight aircraft instead of nine today the Navy has transitioned active duty Patrol squadrants to the p8 Poseidon which is based on the 737 airframe this essentially has ended the Navy's active duty era for the P3 Orion still serve a Navy Reserve and air test evaluation squadrons and Final Phase out of the aircraft is expected sometime in 2023 aside from Naval service p3s also operate in a wide variety of roles and missions some examples include usage by the U.S Customs and Border Protection to perform aircraft intercept and Maritime Patrol duties Noah operates two hurricane hunter WP 3D variants that are used for research and weather reporting there have even been p3s used as firefighters the ep3 Aria is an electronic signals reconnaissance variant of the Orion there are also rp3 variants used by the naval research lab Australia operates the ap3c variant which is used for search and survival supply naval fleet support along with traditional P3 roles the Orion is in service or has served with nearly 20 Nations including Argentina Australia Brazil Canada Germany Japan Norway South Korea Spain and Taiwan although not as flashy as fighter jets the p3's role in Patrol and surveillance especially in tracking ballistic missile submarines has played a critical role in keeping all of us safe the brave men and women who have flown crude maintained and developed this long-serving and successful airframe all deserve recognition for the service they have provided to our nation and the Free World the P3 replaced the venerable p2v Neptune some 60 years ago and as mentioned is being replaced by the p8 Poseidon the Poseidon is an excellent airplane and foregoes the use of a Mad Boom at the end of the fuselage flying higher and with more advanced sensors the Poseidon relies on sauna boys and other instruments to perform the same Mission as the low-flying Orion still there may be something lost by transitioning to higher altitudes to quote a sailor who flew low-level P3 missions the times of routinely rigging ships at 300 feet ASL are gone for U.S Naval Aviation kind of sad that the younger men and women coming into service on the p8 will seldom if ever know the thrill of looking out a window and seeing the faces of the crew on the ships that they are prosecuting the P3 was a critical asset for Allied Naval ASW efforts since its introduction in the early 60s and to this day without a doubt the Orion is an incredible aircraft and hopefully this video has given you some insight into the P3 or allowed you to reminisce about your time in the aircraft I'd like to thank Eleanor arrangers Franz Bond Scott sharick Don Staton and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Cold War Historical Society their generous donation of their time and interviews I was able to conduct with him help me put together this video the Southeastern Pennsylvania Cold War Historical Society hosts monthly Zoom calls featuring a designer or operator of some weapon systems that were used during that long conflict I'll leave links in the description below as well as links to books you should check out to learn more about this amazing airplane thank you to my patrons and members of this channel your support helps me make videos like these possible now you know

Channel: PilotPhotog

Views: 275,915

Keywords: IBM, agm -65 maverick, agm -84 harpoon, airplane, anti ship, anti submarine, asw, australia, avgeek, avgeeks, boomers, cold war, depth charge, development, digital, legacy, lockheed, lockheed martin, lockheed p-3 orion, nadc, naval air development center, navy, nuclear ballistic missile submarine, p-3 orion, p-3 orion flyby, p2v neptune, p3, pennsylvania, pilotphotog, plane, rigging a ship, sonobuoy, standoff, sub hunter, torpedo, update iii, upgrdade, us navy, ussr, warminster, world war iii

Id: HRLpfCK9fKU

Length: 22min 49sec (1369 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2022