The Lockheed SP-2H Neptune
A pictorial walk-around
The Neptune was developed during WOII, had its first flight in 1945 and consequently, was too late for World War II. More than 1.100 Neptune's were manufactured at the Lockheed Burbank plant from 1946 through 1961. Early in its career, the Neptune was a heavily armed offensive weapon with turrets, a noseful of fixed 20 mm cannons and a big bay full of bombs, torpedoes and depth charges, but over the years everything changed and during the Cold War the Neptune signaled a new era in which aircraft became platforms for other technology.
The Neptune caught from the 747 at the Aviodrome Museum.
After its service life with the Dutch Navy Neptune "210" was transferred to the KLM technical school. It was transported by vessel from Valkenburg to Schiphol. After 'service' with KLM she was donated to the Aviodrome Museum.
'210' was originally a P2V-7B with 4 x 20 mm machine guns in the nose. During the years she was modernized by Aviolanda to SP-2H status.
Weathered, but still as good a looker as the day she rolled off the Burbank production line.
The Neptune is a great looking brute.
The fairing of the AN/ALR-3 ECM which is part of the Airborne Counter Measeures Equipment. The AN/ALR is basically an airborne threat warning system and was developed during the WOII and refined on the treshold of the Cold War.
The Neptune needs painting.
BOW observer or MAD-ASR operator station and a fresh air duct.
'210' poses for your photographer.
It was a warm and beautiful April morning when I photographed Lockheed Neptune '210' on the Aviodrome Museum ramp.
Aft retracting nose wheel.
Covered static pitot tube.
Torque scissor links.
Total Air Temperature sensor (TAT) ASA 13.
Nosewheel well-aft face with entrance ladder to the nose tunnel hatch.
Emergency exit for the flight crew of the forward compartment.
Despite looking looking a little rough, '210' is in good condition!
From left to right; - The emergency release handle for the MK12A life raft which is mounted over the copilot's right shoulder, the flight station escape hatches and the co-pilot's fresh air intake.
'210' enjoys the sunshine.
'210' being portrayed on a sunny morning.
Faded, beat up paint.
'210' is crying out for some cosmetic attention.
3.700 HP Wright R-3350-32W turbo-compound 18-cylinder radial engine.
Four-blade Hamilton standard variabel-pitch propeller.
The blades are hollow, high strength steel shells forming laminar flow airfoil sections.
Constant speed propeller control is maintained by the propeller governor mounted on the engine nose case.
On TOP the distributor, ensures that each spark plug receives voltage in sequence and below the one of the 18 cylinders.
The Neptune is festooned with a variety of aerials for direction finding and communications.
Westinghouse J34-WE-36 booster turbojet engine.
From left to right; - Air intake for cooling the turbojet and the forward retracting mainwheel, plus wheelbay.
Jet pod doors.
The jet pod doors open when the jet throttles are moved from the OFF to STANDBY position. The jet pod doors will close seventy seconds after the jet throttles are moved to the OFF position.
The turbojet engine consists of an axialflow, eleven-stage compressor, a double fuel manifold with 60 spray nozzles, a double-annular combustion chamber, a two-stage gas turbine, a fixed-area exhaust nozzles, and various accessories mounted on the bottom of the engine.
Each wing tip tank has vapor dilution system installed as a means of purging the tank of explosive concentrations of fuel vapors that remain after the tank fuel supply has been depleted.
From left to right; - Panel ?, Naviagation light, Panel ? and static discharge wick.
Search light.
Wing tip fuel tank with a tank stabilizing fin and a static discharge wick.
The Neptune is festooned with a variety of aerials for direction finding and communications antenna's.
From left to right; - UHF antenna, Astro hatch, VHF antenna and ?
On top the antenna of the AN/ARN-21 Tactical Air Navigation System (TACAN). The AN/ARN is part of the Airborne Radio Navigation Equipment. The AN/ALR is basically distance measuring equipment and was developed during the WOII and refined on the treshold of the Cold War. Below an outlet for cockpit ventalation.
Cabin heater Ram air duct.
Ram air for ventilating the forward cabin station enters the duct system through a ram air scoop in the leading edge of the right wing center section (between fuselage and right engine nacelle).
Landing light in wing and the others are suspensions or connectors for armament.
UHF (ultra high frequency) antenna.
UHF (ultra high frequency) antenna.
Atro hatch.
The antenna of the AN/ARC-73 VHF RCVR-XMTR which is part of the Airborne Radio Communication Equipment. The AN/ARC is basically a very high frequency air-to-air and air-to-ground voice communications radio and was developed during the WOII and refined on the treshold of the Cold War. AN/ARC stands for Army Navy / Airborne Radio Communication.
I have been informed that '210' was used as an instructional airframe and was hardly ever taken out of the hangar at Valkenburg Navy base.
From left to right; - AN/ALR-3 antenna, ventilation intake and right side window of the cockpit.
The colossal radome of the AN/APS-20 search radar scanner which is part of the Airborne Search and Detection Equipment. The APS is basically an airborne early warning, anti-submarine, maritime surveillance and weather radar. It was developed during the WOII and refined on the treshold of the Cold War.
From left to right; - ?
From left to right; - Exhaust gas fan covers and the air intakes for the radarroom equipment.
Exhaust gas fan cover of the radar equipment (behind this spot was the radar room).
Bomb bay.
From left to right; - The ALR-3 ECM, APA-69 DR Radar, Sonobuoy launch outlet ?, ALR-8 ECM and ARR-26 antenna.
From left to right; - Observer window and ?
From left to right; - Exhaust outlet of heated air and a drip drain.
?
The fairing of the AN/ALR-3 ECM which is part of the Airborne Counter Measeures Equipment. The AN/ALR is basically an airborne threat warning system and was developed during the WOII and refined on the treshold of the Cold War.
The fairing of the AN/ALR-8 ECM which is part of the Airborne Counter Measeures Equipment. The AN/ALR is basically an airborne threat warning system and was developed during the WOII and refined on the treshold of the Cold War.
The trailing wire antenna for HF broadcasting (215 feet long).
Fiberglass tailboom and magnetometer tail cone.
At the end of the tailboom is the ABQ-10 magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) and navigation light.
This was a hinged access hatch to the rear of the fuselage. During the years it has been replaced by a fixed plate.
Entrance hatch aft fuselage.
Entrance hatch aft fuselage.
The antenna of the AN/ALC-52 UDF COMM which is part of the Airborne Counter Measeures Equipment.
From left to right; - Toilet outlet, Bumper, APA-69 Radar, Sonobuoy launch outlet ?, AN/ALR-8 ECM and the AN/ALR-3 ECM.
'210' sitting pretty at the museum ramp.
Bumber and toilet outlet.
Toilet outlet.
The fairing of the ALR-3 ECM and below the radome the APA-69 DF radar. The AN/APA-69 is part of the Airborne Radar Auxiliary Assembly Equipment. The AN/APA is basically a direction finding radar and was developed during the WOII and refined on the treshold of the Cold War.
The Neptune is festooned with a variety of ventilation outlets, exhausts, panels and numerous drip drains.
From left to right; - Cold air inlet and exhaust outlet for the radar stations inside.
External power-receptacle.
Exhaust outlets of heated air.
Wingtip tank with a capactity of 757 liter.
Left hand side static pitot tube.
- The End -
12 stuks P2V-5 : kenmerken S.21-S.32 / later vanaf 1959 nummers 086-097
15 stuks P2V-7B : kenmerken 200-214 (later door Aviolanda gemoderniseerd tot SP-2H, behalve de "200" die was afgeschreven)
4 stuks P2V-7 : kenmerken 215-218 (later aangekocht en door Aviolanda gemoderniseerd tot SP-2H)
(dhr. R. Burgerhout meldde: De 7B’s zijn door Nederland aangekocht bij Lockheed en kregen daarom geen individueel BuAerNo. Aan de hele serie is één nummer toegekend voor de radio- en radaruitrusting, dit nummer is/was al in gebruik bij een P2V-7S van de USN. Bij de latere ombouw tot SP-2H is waarschijnlijk dat er aparte nummer series zijn voor de vliegtuigen en voor de apparatuur, maar dat is niet bewezen).
In het kader van het MDAP kreeg ook Nederland de beschikking over Neptunes. Ze vervingen de Lockheed Harpoon bij de MLD. De eerste P2V-5 Neptunes kwamen bij MLD in december 1953 en gingen naar no.320 squadron op Valkenburg. April 1954 werden de eerste twee Neptunes officieel in dienst gesteld maar de rest ging in opslag vanwege personeelstekort. Deze Neptunes hadden een krachtige APS-20 radar voor het opsporen van oppervlakteschepen. In eerste instantie bestond een bemanning uit 7: 2 vliegers, een vlieger/waarnemer, 2 radaroperators/telegrafisten, 1 boordwerktuigkundige, en 1 schutter. De rol van radaroperator was een te zware taak, daarom werd een extra bemanningslid toegevoegd die als telegrafist fungeerde.
Uiteindelijk kwamen waren er in 1958 zo'n 8 Neptunes inzetbaar en naast de gebruikelijke operationele vluchten deden ze ook mee aan diverse internationale oefeningen. Ze waren ook bedoeld voor onderzeebootbestrijding maar de detectieboeien waren nogal storingsgevoelig. Geleidelijk aan werd in 8 toestellen een LORAN AN/APN-70 locatiesysteem ingebouwd en in 3 kisten een AN/APN-69 en een aantal Neptunes van deze kisten vervulden ook soms een OSRD taak.
De eerste serie van 12 P2V-5 ging uit dienst rond 1960/1961 en de kisten die allemaal nog Amerikaans eigendom waren, gingen na een opknapbeurt bij de firma Aviolanda veelal naar Portugal. (de Portugese bemanningen kregen ook een training bij de MLD op Valkenburg; veel van deze Portugese Neptunes werden ook ingezet in Portugees Koloniaal Afrika zoals Guinee, Angola en Mozambique waarbij bevrijdingsbewegingen onafhankelijkheid voor deze landen wilden).
De MLD kreeg een nieuwe registratiesysteem in oktober 1959.
Voor gebruik in Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea werden 15 nieuwe toestellen van het type P2V-7B (ofwel P-2H maar dat was een administratieve toekenning) besteld in 1960. Deze werden september 1961 afgeleverd. Direct naar Biak gingen 11 kisten vliegen bij squadron VSQ 321. De andere 4 kisten gingen naar Nederland bij VSQ 5 en ze werden op Valkenburg gebruikt voor opleiding. De toestellen met een dichte neus waren behoorlijk verschillend van de Amerikaanse P2V-7 kisten, zo ontbrak de onderzeeboot-bestrijdingsapparatuur maar was wel de bedrading gehandhaafd. Voorzien van 4 zware mitrailleurs in de neus werden ze aangeduid als -7B. Ze werden veelvuldig gebruikt bij diverse acties in Nieuw-Guinea (en ook de "213" en "214" hebben op Nieuw Guinea op Biak gestaan).
De terugkomst in Nederland van de in Nieuw-Guinea gevlogen Neptunes was oktober 1962. Ze kwamen bij MLD VSQ / no. 320 squadron en en no.5 squadron. De nieuwe Neptune taak was onderzeebootbestrijding en in de jaren 1963-1966 werden daarom de resterende kisten omgebouwd tot P2V-7B (vanaf 1965 genoemd SP-2H). De kanonnen werden verwijderd en de kisten voorzien van onderzeebootbestrijdingsapparatuur en een transparante neus voor waarnemingen. De kisten nrs. "209" en "212" werden bij Lockheed verbouwd, de overige kisten zijn verbouwd bij Aviolanda. Ook kwamen er in 1965 vier extra P2V-7 toestellen vanuit Frankrijk, die ook werden verbouwd tot SP-2H.
De Neptunes werden gebruikt voor verkenning, OSRD en onderzeebootbestrijding. Het was de tijd van de Koude Oorlog. Voorzien van een MAD boom en een oppervlakteradar onder de romp, konden lange patrouilles worden gevlogen. De bemanning bestond tijdens dergelijke missies uit wel 11 man, ook voor aflossing. De cabine zat stampvol met elektronica en de vleugelbox liep ook door de romp, erboven langs kon men kruipen van voor naar achter naar de diverse werkplekken.
MLD Neptunes vlogen ook vanaf diverse buitenlandse velden, met name tijdens NAVO oefeningen.
De Neptune werd begin jaren zeventig ook gebruikt vanaf Hato op Curaçao als vervanging van de aldaar vliegende Trackers. VSQ 1 op Hato werd augustus 1971 opgeheven en werd "Detachement Marineluchtvaartdienst Curaçao". Er waren in de regel steeds zo'n 3 Neptunes van VSQ 320 gestationeerd op Hato. De ferry vluchten naar de West duurden vaak zo'n 10 tot twaalf uur en vereiste goede navigatie. Ze voerden in Carabisch gebied militaire taken uit. De Neptunes werden gerouleerd met steeds zo'n 3 maanden per kist en het groot onderhoud werd op Valkenburg uitgevoerd.
De vervanging van de Neptunes was een veel terugkerende politieke discussie in de jaren zeventig en de laatste MLD Neptune vloog door tot in 1982 ! Toen pas kwam de P-3C Orion.
210 726-726316-01-196215-06-1982Valkenburg; Gemodificeerde versie (P2V-7B) met 4 x 20 mm mitrailleurs in de neus. Door Aviolanda gemoderniseerd tot SP-2H.
Naar KLM voor instructiedoeleinden, nu in fake KLM kleuren Aviodrome
15 stuks P2V-7B : kenmerken 200-214 (later door Aviolanda gemoderniseerd tot SP-2H, behalve de "200" die was afgeschreven)
4 stuks P2V-7 : kenmerken 215-218 (later aangekocht en door Aviolanda gemoderniseerd tot SP-2H)
(dhr. R. Burgerhout meldde: De 7B’s zijn door Nederland aangekocht bij Lockheed en kregen daarom geen individueel BuAerNo. Aan de hele serie is één nummer toegekend voor de radio- en radaruitrusting, dit nummer is/was al in gebruik bij een P2V-7S van de USN. Bij de latere ombouw tot SP-2H is waarschijnlijk dat er aparte nummer series zijn voor de vliegtuigen en voor de apparatuur, maar dat is niet bewezen).
In het kader van het MDAP kreeg ook Nederland de beschikking over Neptunes. Ze vervingen de Lockheed Harpoon bij de MLD. De eerste P2V-5 Neptunes kwamen bij MLD in december 1953 en gingen naar no.320 squadron op Valkenburg. April 1954 werden de eerste twee Neptunes officieel in dienst gesteld maar de rest ging in opslag vanwege personeelstekort. Deze Neptunes hadden een krachtige APS-20 radar voor het opsporen van oppervlakteschepen. In eerste instantie bestond een bemanning uit 7: 2 vliegers, een vlieger/waarnemer, 2 radaroperators/telegrafisten, 1 boordwerktuigkundige, en 1 schutter. De rol van radaroperator was een te zware taak, daarom werd een extra bemanningslid toegevoegd die als telegrafist fungeerde.
Uiteindelijk kwamen waren er in 1958 zo'n 8 Neptunes inzetbaar en naast de gebruikelijke operationele vluchten deden ze ook mee aan diverse internationale oefeningen. Ze waren ook bedoeld voor onderzeebootbestrijding maar de detectieboeien waren nogal storingsgevoelig. Geleidelijk aan werd in 8 toestellen een LORAN AN/APN-70 locatiesysteem ingebouwd en in 3 kisten een AN/APN-69 en een aantal Neptunes van deze kisten vervulden ook soms een OSRD taak.
De eerste serie van 12 P2V-5 ging uit dienst rond 1960/1961 en de kisten die allemaal nog Amerikaans eigendom waren, gingen na een opknapbeurt bij de firma Aviolanda veelal naar Portugal. (de Portugese bemanningen kregen ook een training bij de MLD op Valkenburg; veel van deze Portugese Neptunes werden ook ingezet in Portugees Koloniaal Afrika zoals Guinee, Angola en Mozambique waarbij bevrijdingsbewegingen onafhankelijkheid voor deze landen wilden).
De MLD kreeg een nieuwe registratiesysteem in oktober 1959.
Voor gebruik in Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea werden 15 nieuwe toestellen van het type P2V-7B (ofwel P-2H maar dat was een administratieve toekenning) besteld in 1960. Deze werden september 1961 afgeleverd. Direct naar Biak gingen 11 kisten vliegen bij squadron VSQ 321. De andere 4 kisten gingen naar Nederland bij VSQ 5 en ze werden op Valkenburg gebruikt voor opleiding. De toestellen met een dichte neus waren behoorlijk verschillend van de Amerikaanse P2V-7 kisten, zo ontbrak de onderzeeboot-bestrijdingsapparatuur maar was wel de bedrading gehandhaafd. Voorzien van 4 zware mitrailleurs in de neus werden ze aangeduid als -7B. Ze werden veelvuldig gebruikt bij diverse acties in Nieuw-Guinea (en ook de "213" en "214" hebben op Nieuw Guinea op Biak gestaan).
De terugkomst in Nederland van de in Nieuw-Guinea gevlogen Neptunes was oktober 1962. Ze kwamen bij MLD VSQ / no. 320 squadron en en no.5 squadron. De nieuwe Neptune taak was onderzeebootbestrijding en in de jaren 1963-1966 werden daarom de resterende kisten omgebouwd tot P2V-7B (vanaf 1965 genoemd SP-2H). De kanonnen werden verwijderd en de kisten voorzien van onderzeebootbestrijdingsapparatuur en een transparante neus voor waarnemingen. De kisten nrs. "209" en "212" werden bij Lockheed verbouwd, de overige kisten zijn verbouwd bij Aviolanda. Ook kwamen er in 1965 vier extra P2V-7 toestellen vanuit Frankrijk, die ook werden verbouwd tot SP-2H.
De Neptunes werden gebruikt voor verkenning, OSRD en onderzeebootbestrijding. Het was de tijd van de Koude Oorlog. Voorzien van een MAD boom en een oppervlakteradar onder de romp, konden lange patrouilles worden gevlogen. De bemanning bestond tijdens dergelijke missies uit wel 11 man, ook voor aflossing. De cabine zat stampvol met elektronica en de vleugelbox liep ook door de romp, erboven langs kon men kruipen van voor naar achter naar de diverse werkplekken.
MLD Neptunes vlogen ook vanaf diverse buitenlandse velden, met name tijdens NAVO oefeningen.
De Neptune werd begin jaren zeventig ook gebruikt vanaf Hato op Curaçao als vervanging van de aldaar vliegende Trackers. VSQ 1 op Hato werd augustus 1971 opgeheven en werd "Detachement Marineluchtvaartdienst Curaçao". Er waren in de regel steeds zo'n 3 Neptunes van VSQ 320 gestationeerd op Hato. De ferry vluchten naar de West duurden vaak zo'n 10 tot twaalf uur en vereiste goede navigatie. Ze voerden in Carabisch gebied militaire taken uit. De Neptunes werden gerouleerd met steeds zo'n 3 maanden per kist en het groot onderhoud werd op Valkenburg uitgevoerd.
De vervanging van de Neptunes was een veel terugkerende politieke discussie in de jaren zeventig en de laatste MLD Neptune vloog door tot in 1982 ! Toen pas kwam de P-3C Orion.
210 726-726316-01-196215-06-1982Valkenburg; Gemodificeerde versie (P2V-7B) met 4 x 20 mm mitrailleurs in de neus. Door Aviolanda gemoderniseerd tot SP-2H.
Naar KLM voor instructiedoeleinden, nu in fake KLM kleuren Aviodrome
“It’s a pilot’s airplane. It has great handling qualities; it’ll do what you want it to do when you want it. It’s just a pleasure to fly.”
“It” is the Lockheed P2V Neptune patrol bomber, and that opinion comes from Russell Strine, who flies the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s fully restored P2V-7 (which is currently inactive, since airshows can no longer afford the amount of fuel it burns).
“We didn’t get there fast, but we always got there,” says P2V-7 radioman Richard Boslow, who flew in Neptunes from 1965 through 1967. Richard Pickering started his patrol-bomber career flying the Consolidated PB4Y-2, the U.S. Navy’s single-tail version of the B-24, before spending 4,500 hours in four different versions of the Neptune. “I always felt that I was strapped to the PB4Y and that the P2V was strapped to me,” he comments.
“The P2V was very forgiving,” says Ron Price, a sonobuoy operator with 2,500 hours in Neptunes between 1962 and 1966. “The wings were flexible, which was a big help down low in turbulence. I remember I had to look up to see the stack on a Russian trawler.” The Neptune was designed to absorb the low-altitude turbulence that was inevitable during maritime surveillance and sub-hunting. Make-do patrol bombers such as the PB4Y-2 and the Royal Air Force’s Avro Shackleton were both based on airframes intended to fly at far higher altitudes.
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“When we used to take our Neptune to airshows,” Strine says, “people didn’t know what it was. It’s a forgotten airplane.”
Indeed it is. Ask casual aviation enthusiasts to trace the history of the modern American bomber and they will almost certainly go full Boeing, with maybe a nod to the B-24: first the B-17, then the B-29 and B-50, leading directly to the B-47 and B-52. Few will remember that Lockheed had substantial skin in the game with the Cold Warrior P2V, which first flew in 1945 and remained operational as a U.S. military aircraft until 1970: too late for World War II and ultimately overshadowed by its successor, the four-turboprop P3 Orion. The Neptune flew combat missions for the U.S. in two wars—Korea and Vietnam—and was one of the nation’s busiest aerial resources during much of the Cold War. The P2V’s last combat operation took place in May 1982, when an Argentine Neptune radar-guided a Super Etendard through a heavy overcast to sink the British destroyer Sheffield with an Exocet missile during the Falklands War.
The Neptune was manufactured nonstop from 1946 through 1961—one of the longest unbroken production runs of any military aircraft ever built. As Aviation History contributing editor Walter J. Boyne once wrote, “The Neptune signaled a new era in which aircraft became platforms for other technology and as such had a far greater longevity than ever before….Few aircraft have succeeded so well in doing so many tasks over such a long period of time.”
Early in its career, the Neptune was a heavily armed offensive weapon with turrets, a noseful of fixed 20mm cannons and a big bay full of bombs, torpedoes or depth charges. All but the depth charges were eventually shed, when it became clear that no Neptune would ever catch a Soviet nuclear sub on the surface. P2Vs were briefly used as gunships during the Vietnam War. Filled with expensive electronics, however, they were too vulnerable and valuable to risk as truck-busters.
Lockheed had produced about 9,000 medium patrol bombers for the Navy and the RAF during World War II—the Hudson, Ventura and Harpoon, all based on the twin-tail Model 14 Super Electra and its derivative Model 18 Lodestar airliners. The Neptune was Lockheed’s first all-new bomber. It was initially designed as a private venture of Lockheed’s Vega subsidiary in late 1941, but the exigencies of war prevented serious work being done on the project until 1944. The Navy needed proven aircraft, not an all-new design. The year after the war ended, Lockheed lost almost $22 million, and even more in 1947 and ’48. Consistent postwar orders for P2Vs, however, helped to keep the inevitable postwar slump manageable.
Lockheed designer/engineer Kelly Johnson played a key role in the development of the Super Electra and its offspring, but it apparently soured him on further patrol-bomber work. Johnson had a famous list of 14 rules for how his Skunk Works team of iconoclasts would operate. Those rules were published and public, but a 15th never made it into official print. “Starve before doing business with the damned Navy,” Johnson said. “They don’t know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy.” So it’s not surprising that Johnson had no hand in the design of the Neptune, instead busying himself with the P-80 Shooting Star and the Constellation. The Neptune was the work of John Wassall, chief engineer of the Vega subsidiary, with the substantial help of engineers R.A. Bailey and Lou Height.
The P2V was a success straight out of the box. In 1946 the U.S. Army Air Forces was setting records routinely with B-29s, raising the bar by simply ferrying them nonstop from the Pacific back to the States. This annoyed Admiral Chester Nimitz, who knew the AAF was campaigning for the big budget bucks by claiming that long-range nuclear raiding was its bailiwick alone.
Nimitz suggested upstaging the Army by setting a record with the Navy’s brand-new Neptune. P2V-1 production aircraft number three was fitted with extra fuel tanks that increased its capacity to almost 9,000 gallons. The airplane was sent to Perth, Australia, with the goal of flying east nonstop and unrefueled all the way to Washington, D.C., maybe even on to Bermuda. Headwinds and bad weather dashed those hopes, but The Turtle made it as far as Naval Air Station Columbus, Ohio, setting a record of 11,236 miles that stood for 16 years, until an Air Force B-52H flew about 1,300 miles farther.
A Navy spokesman decided that The Turtle wasn’t a jazzy enough name for a record-setting bomber, so in a press release he bumped it up to The Truculent Turtle. Call it what you will, the airplane today sits in the National Naval Aviation Museum, in Pensacola, Fla.
The P2V went through a considerable range of variants, from P2V-1 to -7, with endless subvariants along the way. There was a P2V-8 on the drawing board, but it was canceled with the arrival of the P-3 Orion, the Neptune’s direct successor. (In 1962 the Navy redesignated P2Vs as P-2s, but to us the Neptune will forever be a P2V, just as a Mustang is a P-51, not an F-word.)
The Neptune grew in fuselage length as more and more sub-hunting and electronic intelligence gear was loaded aboard, including the characteristic tail-stinger extension to hold the magnetic anomaly detector boom. The fuselage was extended with a section inserted forward of the wing starting with the P2V-6. This was relatively simple to do, as the Neptune was designed for ease of manufacture, and the entire fuselage from just aft of the cockpit to the beginning of the tail cone is a straight-sided, uniform cross section oval can.
Throughout its Navy career, the P2V was powered by a pair of Wright R-3350 twin-row Duplex-Cyclone radials, which had proved troublesome aboard B-29s. But wartime experience had pinpointed the R-3350’s weak spots—mainly cooling problems and an improperly designed exhaust system—and the engine turned out to be reliable on the Neptune.
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Most Neptune variants mounted straight R-3350s, but with the P2V-4, the Wright engines became turbocompounds—R-3350s with three power-recovery turbines that each added about 150 hp. The PRTs were essentially exhaust-driven turbocharger impellers, but rather than driving compressors, they imparted their torque mechanically, straight back to the crankshaft via shafts driving fluid couplings. (Horsepower figures for the R-3350 and its turbocompounding system vary substantially from source to source. The always-reliable Aircraft Engine Historical Society says that the Neptune started life with 2,400-hp engines and ended its career with 3,700 hp each.)
A far more substantial power boost came from the addition of two 3,500-pound-thrust turbojets in underwing pods on the P2V-5 and succeeding marks. The Navy had by this time loaded four tons of extra electronic gear aboard the Neptune, and the airplane could barely get off the ground. “I learned early on that the -7 is a four-engine airplane on takeoff,” says Russ Strine. “It does burn fuel going down the runway, nearly 2,000 gallons per hour, but you get off that power setting right away and then can throttle the jets back. Typically, I left them at idle until I got the recips cooled down, then I went ahead and secured them.” Strine kept the jets at idle during low-altitude airshow displays, but unlike Navy SOP, didn’t leave them running during landings.
Though it was hard to hear the jets inside the airplane, the R-3350s were another matter, thanks to a lack of any interior insulation. “The guys who flew Neptunes are mostly deaf,” says Richard Boslow. “Ninety percent of them wear hearing aids, and the other 10 percent need them. The patrols you didn’t look forward to were the ones where you were out in a patrol box in the middle of the North Atlantic in midwinter and you got a radio message ‘PLE,’ which meant fly to the prudent limit of endurance: Stay out until you have just enough gas to get home. We had one mission that went 15½ hours.” Sonobuoy operator Ron Price remembers that “We had gas heaters, but if we got even the slightest whiff of gasoline, we had to secure them. We did 10-hour flights without any heat.”
The Neptune is a big airplane. A casual glance at a photo of a P2V might have you thinking in B-25 terms, but the Neptune is bigger than a B-17 in every dimension and carried a larger crew—as many as 12 pilots, observers, weapons-system operators, a radioman, a navigator and other electronics specialists. The P2V also had a flight engineer, whose official title, oddly, was “plane captain,” but who was not a pilot. He sat in a jump seat just behind and between the pilots and was responsible for a variety of duties, including balancing the substantial fuel load.
Despite the size of the crew, it was almost impossible to bail out of a Neptune. The fuselage was studded with antennas and radomes, many of them close to the two bailout hatches—one below the flight deck and a second in the aft compartment. “The only way to bail out of a Neptune was the after hatch,” says Boslow, “and there were a number of antennas out there that could cut you in half. Or you went out the nosewheel well and hoped you didn’t face-plant into the radome.” Ditching was considered a better option.
Ditching was indeed part of the mission for the dozen P2V-2s and -3s that the Navy outfitted as nuclear bombers in the late 1940s. The P2V-3Cs, as they were designated, were supposed to take off from carriers and, assuming they somehow penetrated Soviet defenses and survived, return to ditch alongside the ships, since they had no tailhooks. The one concession to this maneuver was a “hydro-flap” that extended down from the belly forward of the wing leading edge, to help keep the nose up during a ditching.
These weren’t the only P2Vs armed with nuclear weapons. “Sometimes we carried nuclear depth charges,” recalls Boslow. “If you got within half a mile of a Soviet sub, you’d be sure of killing it. Of course you’d probably kill yourself too.”
Among the most unusual Neptune variants were the seven heavily modified P2V-7s redesignated as RB-69As and given Air Force markings. Like the U-2, Lockheed’s Skunk Works actually built them for the CIA as spyplanes. The “Sacred Seven” operated over both central Europe and mainland China from 1957 through 1964, and some of their pilots were civilians.
Though the RB-69As were capable of everything from leaflet-dropping to aerial delivery and retrieval (via Skyhook) of behind-enemy-lines agents, their main mission was gathering electronic intelligence. They called it “perimeter aerial reconnaissance,” the perimeters being the Iron and Bamboo curtains, and there were times when the RB-69As actually crossed those borders. The Chinese shot down five of the seven, and nobody seems to know what happened to the two survivors. An “RB-69A” is on display at Warner-Robins Air Force Base, in Georgia, but it is actually an ex-Navy P2V painted in Air Force colors.
The Army was the third U.S. service to operate Neptunes. Six P2V-5s, redesignated as AP-2Es, served in Vietnam as radio-signal snoopers and jammers. Robert Cothroll was a voice-intercept operator aboard one of those AP-2Es from May 1970 through 1971, working for the intelligence staffs of Army ground units. “We flew over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos,” says Cothroll, listening to short-range tactical radio transmissions by the North Vietnamese Army. “We usually flew at around 130 knots, about as slow as we could. We made lazy ovals, never the same way twice. There was a lot of triple-A in the area, plus a couple of SAM sites. We weren’t shot at that often. One plane had a round go through a wing fuel tank,
but it exploded well above the aircraft. I think because we were passive—no armament—and were often with F-4s, they didn’t expose their gun sites to us. And they were holding their SAMs back for someone more important.”
One thing Cothroll particularly remembers about those 13-hour missions was that the Neptune lazed along in such a nose-high attitude that “Guys would complain that our buttocks were going to be disproportionate—one cheek bigger than the other—because we sat sideways and were always leaning slightly to the left.” Look at any side-view photo of a Neptune and you’ll see the substantial downward thrust line of the piston engines. This is an airplane that obviously was designed for loitering patrol flight, when the increased angle of attack would have put the engines at a normal attitude.
That side view also makes apparent one of the Neptune’s most distinguishing features: its oversize vertical tail. Some might assume the big tail fin was designed to enhance control during single-engine flight, but the rudder—the crucial engine-out control surface—is actually relatively narrow. The huge vertical stabilizer, however, creates great stability in low-altitude turbulence. “We got turbulence during monsoon season,” Cothroll remembers, “but nothing so bad you’d lose a cup of coffee. It was a pretty comfortable ride.”
“You have to be very aware of the crosswind component because of that big fin,” Russ Strine warns. “When you land and put the props into reverse, suddenly there’s no airflow over the fin, and the crosswind really grabs hold of it. They landed us at Oshkosh one time with a quartering tailwind. Jesus, what a scary episode that was. We lost control of the airplane momentarily and almost went off the runway. Went into reverse again and the airplane turned even harder, took out two runway lights.”
The Neptune’s tail featured an unusual “varicam,” a complex mechanism that altered the camber of the horizontal stabilizer, thus serving as an especially powerful trim tab but with lower drag. It was so effective that some pilots called it a super-elevator. The varicam helped trim out the varying center of gravity as Neptunes burned fuel on 10- to 13-hour missions, but its biggest benefit showed up during landings.
P2Vs were typically nose-heavy, especially with a forward CG at the end of a long mission, and more than a few unwary pilots landed them nosewheel first, which led to up-and-down porpoising on the runway. Three or four porpoises usually resulted in the nosegear collapsing. Proper P2V landing technique was to roll on increasing amounts of nose-up varicam as the power came off in the flare. “It takes all the control pressures off, and you can hold the yoke back in your gut, and the nosewheel stays off till you’re halfway down the runway,” says Strine.
Another Neptune characteristic was its sometimes-leaky, high-pressure hydraulic system. “It’s a hydraulic airplane, no question about it,” explains Strine. “Everything is hydraulic except the cowl flaps: landing gear, flaps, spoilers, varicam, bomb bay doors…it’s a 3,000-psi system.” One story has it that when a pencil-size cockpit line sprang a tiny leak, a new Navy copilot tried to stanch it with his thumb. The spray of hydraulic fluid continued…through his thumbnail.
The Neptune’s swan song was as a firebomber, starting in the late 1960s. At one point there were 33 Neptunes operating as borate bombers in the West—a high percentage of the approximately 40 P2Vs that survived military service (not counting those left to molder away in the Davis-Monthan Boneyard). The last seven firefighters were retired in 2017, largely replaced by British Aerospace BAe 146s, which carry half again as much retardant and have a service life of 80,000 hours versus the Neptune’s 15,000.
Today there are only two restored Neptunes still flying. The Australian Historic Aircraft Restoration Society operates a handsome P2V-7 painted in Royal Australian Air Force colors, and the Erickson Aircraft Collection, in Madras, Ore., regularly flies its -7 to airshows. Though the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum has grounded its Neptune, it could be relaunched after a thorough annual and some new tires and hydraulic and fuel hoses.
Unfortunately, airshow crowds are far more interested in B-17s, B-24s and B-29s than they are in this forgotten bomber.
“It” is the Lockheed P2V Neptune patrol bomber, and that opinion comes from Russell Strine, who flies the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s fully restored P2V-7 (which is currently inactive, since airshows can no longer afford the amount of fuel it burns).
“We didn’t get there fast, but we always got there,” says P2V-7 radioman Richard Boslow, who flew in Neptunes from 1965 through 1967. Richard Pickering started his patrol-bomber career flying the Consolidated PB4Y-2, the U.S. Navy’s single-tail version of the B-24, before spending 4,500 hours in four different versions of the Neptune. “I always felt that I was strapped to the PB4Y and that the P2V was strapped to me,” he comments.
“The P2V was very forgiving,” says Ron Price, a sonobuoy operator with 2,500 hours in Neptunes between 1962 and 1966. “The wings were flexible, which was a big help down low in turbulence. I remember I had to look up to see the stack on a Russian trawler.” The Neptune was designed to absorb the low-altitude turbulence that was inevitable during maritime surveillance and sub-hunting. Make-do patrol bombers such as the PB4Y-2 and the Royal Air Force’s Avro Shackleton were both based on airframes intended to fly at far higher altitudes.
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“When we used to take our Neptune to airshows,” Strine says, “people didn’t know what it was. It’s a forgotten airplane.”
Indeed it is. Ask casual aviation enthusiasts to trace the history of the modern American bomber and they will almost certainly go full Boeing, with maybe a nod to the B-24: first the B-17, then the B-29 and B-50, leading directly to the B-47 and B-52. Few will remember that Lockheed had substantial skin in the game with the Cold Warrior P2V, which first flew in 1945 and remained operational as a U.S. military aircraft until 1970: too late for World War II and ultimately overshadowed by its successor, the four-turboprop P3 Orion. The Neptune flew combat missions for the U.S. in two wars—Korea and Vietnam—and was one of the nation’s busiest aerial resources during much of the Cold War. The P2V’s last combat operation took place in May 1982, when an Argentine Neptune radar-guided a Super Etendard through a heavy overcast to sink the British destroyer Sheffield with an Exocet missile during the Falklands War.
The Neptune was manufactured nonstop from 1946 through 1961—one of the longest unbroken production runs of any military aircraft ever built. As Aviation History contributing editor Walter J. Boyne once wrote, “The Neptune signaled a new era in which aircraft became platforms for other technology and as such had a far greater longevity than ever before….Few aircraft have succeeded so well in doing so many tasks over such a long period of time.”
Early in its career, the Neptune was a heavily armed offensive weapon with turrets, a noseful of fixed 20mm cannons and a big bay full of bombs, torpedoes or depth charges. All but the depth charges were eventually shed, when it became clear that no Neptune would ever catch a Soviet nuclear sub on the surface. P2Vs were briefly used as gunships during the Vietnam War. Filled with expensive electronics, however, they were too vulnerable and valuable to risk as truck-busters.
Lockheed had produced about 9,000 medium patrol bombers for the Navy and the RAF during World War II—the Hudson, Ventura and Harpoon, all based on the twin-tail Model 14 Super Electra and its derivative Model 18 Lodestar airliners. The Neptune was Lockheed’s first all-new bomber. It was initially designed as a private venture of Lockheed’s Vega subsidiary in late 1941, but the exigencies of war prevented serious work being done on the project until 1944. The Navy needed proven aircraft, not an all-new design. The year after the war ended, Lockheed lost almost $22 million, and even more in 1947 and ’48. Consistent postwar orders for P2Vs, however, helped to keep the inevitable postwar slump manageable.
Lockheed designer/engineer Kelly Johnson played a key role in the development of the Super Electra and its offspring, but it apparently soured him on further patrol-bomber work. Johnson had a famous list of 14 rules for how his Skunk Works team of iconoclasts would operate. Those rules were published and public, but a 15th never made it into official print. “Starve before doing business with the damned Navy,” Johnson said. “They don’t know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy.” So it’s not surprising that Johnson had no hand in the design of the Neptune, instead busying himself with the P-80 Shooting Star and the Constellation. The Neptune was the work of John Wassall, chief engineer of the Vega subsidiary, with the substantial help of engineers R.A. Bailey and Lou Height.
The P2V was a success straight out of the box. In 1946 the U.S. Army Air Forces was setting records routinely with B-29s, raising the bar by simply ferrying them nonstop from the Pacific back to the States. This annoyed Admiral Chester Nimitz, who knew the AAF was campaigning for the big budget bucks by claiming that long-range nuclear raiding was its bailiwick alone.
Nimitz suggested upstaging the Army by setting a record with the Navy’s brand-new Neptune. P2V-1 production aircraft number three was fitted with extra fuel tanks that increased its capacity to almost 9,000 gallons. The airplane was sent to Perth, Australia, with the goal of flying east nonstop and unrefueled all the way to Washington, D.C., maybe even on to Bermuda. Headwinds and bad weather dashed those hopes, but The Turtle made it as far as Naval Air Station Columbus, Ohio, setting a record of 11,236 miles that stood for 16 years, until an Air Force B-52H flew about 1,300 miles farther.
A Navy spokesman decided that The Turtle wasn’t a jazzy enough name for a record-setting bomber, so in a press release he bumped it up to The Truculent Turtle. Call it what you will, the airplane today sits in the National Naval Aviation Museum, in Pensacola, Fla.
The P2V went through a considerable range of variants, from P2V-1 to -7, with endless subvariants along the way. There was a P2V-8 on the drawing board, but it was canceled with the arrival of the P-3 Orion, the Neptune’s direct successor. (In 1962 the Navy redesignated P2Vs as P-2s, but to us the Neptune will forever be a P2V, just as a Mustang is a P-51, not an F-word.)
The Neptune grew in fuselage length as more and more sub-hunting and electronic intelligence gear was loaded aboard, including the characteristic tail-stinger extension to hold the magnetic anomaly detector boom. The fuselage was extended with a section inserted forward of the wing starting with the P2V-6. This was relatively simple to do, as the Neptune was designed for ease of manufacture, and the entire fuselage from just aft of the cockpit to the beginning of the tail cone is a straight-sided, uniform cross section oval can.
Throughout its Navy career, the P2V was powered by a pair of Wright R-3350 twin-row Duplex-Cyclone radials, which had proved troublesome aboard B-29s. But wartime experience had pinpointed the R-3350’s weak spots—mainly cooling problems and an improperly designed exhaust system—and the engine turned out to be reliable on the Neptune.
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Most Neptune variants mounted straight R-3350s, but with the P2V-4, the Wright engines became turbocompounds—R-3350s with three power-recovery turbines that each added about 150 hp. The PRTs were essentially exhaust-driven turbocharger impellers, but rather than driving compressors, they imparted their torque mechanically, straight back to the crankshaft via shafts driving fluid couplings. (Horsepower figures for the R-3350 and its turbocompounding system vary substantially from source to source. The always-reliable Aircraft Engine Historical Society says that the Neptune started life with 2,400-hp engines and ended its career with 3,700 hp each.)
A far more substantial power boost came from the addition of two 3,500-pound-thrust turbojets in underwing pods on the P2V-5 and succeeding marks. The Navy had by this time loaded four tons of extra electronic gear aboard the Neptune, and the airplane could barely get off the ground. “I learned early on that the -7 is a four-engine airplane on takeoff,” says Russ Strine. “It does burn fuel going down the runway, nearly 2,000 gallons per hour, but you get off that power setting right away and then can throttle the jets back. Typically, I left them at idle until I got the recips cooled down, then I went ahead and secured them.” Strine kept the jets at idle during low-altitude airshow displays, but unlike Navy SOP, didn’t leave them running during landings.
Though it was hard to hear the jets inside the airplane, the R-3350s were another matter, thanks to a lack of any interior insulation. “The guys who flew Neptunes are mostly deaf,” says Richard Boslow. “Ninety percent of them wear hearing aids, and the other 10 percent need them. The patrols you didn’t look forward to were the ones where you were out in a patrol box in the middle of the North Atlantic in midwinter and you got a radio message ‘PLE,’ which meant fly to the prudent limit of endurance: Stay out until you have just enough gas to get home. We had one mission that went 15½ hours.” Sonobuoy operator Ron Price remembers that “We had gas heaters, but if we got even the slightest whiff of gasoline, we had to secure them. We did 10-hour flights without any heat.”
The Neptune is a big airplane. A casual glance at a photo of a P2V might have you thinking in B-25 terms, but the Neptune is bigger than a B-17 in every dimension and carried a larger crew—as many as 12 pilots, observers, weapons-system operators, a radioman, a navigator and other electronics specialists. The P2V also had a flight engineer, whose official title, oddly, was “plane captain,” but who was not a pilot. He sat in a jump seat just behind and between the pilots and was responsible for a variety of duties, including balancing the substantial fuel load.
Despite the size of the crew, it was almost impossible to bail out of a Neptune. The fuselage was studded with antennas and radomes, many of them close to the two bailout hatches—one below the flight deck and a second in the aft compartment. “The only way to bail out of a Neptune was the after hatch,” says Boslow, “and there were a number of antennas out there that could cut you in half. Or you went out the nosewheel well and hoped you didn’t face-plant into the radome.” Ditching was considered a better option.
Ditching was indeed part of the mission for the dozen P2V-2s and -3s that the Navy outfitted as nuclear bombers in the late 1940s. The P2V-3Cs, as they were designated, were supposed to take off from carriers and, assuming they somehow penetrated Soviet defenses and survived, return to ditch alongside the ships, since they had no tailhooks. The one concession to this maneuver was a “hydro-flap” that extended down from the belly forward of the wing leading edge, to help keep the nose up during a ditching.
These weren’t the only P2Vs armed with nuclear weapons. “Sometimes we carried nuclear depth charges,” recalls Boslow. “If you got within half a mile of a Soviet sub, you’d be sure of killing it. Of course you’d probably kill yourself too.”
Among the most unusual Neptune variants were the seven heavily modified P2V-7s redesignated as RB-69As and given Air Force markings. Like the U-2, Lockheed’s Skunk Works actually built them for the CIA as spyplanes. The “Sacred Seven” operated over both central Europe and mainland China from 1957 through 1964, and some of their pilots were civilians.
Though the RB-69As were capable of everything from leaflet-dropping to aerial delivery and retrieval (via Skyhook) of behind-enemy-lines agents, their main mission was gathering electronic intelligence. They called it “perimeter aerial reconnaissance,” the perimeters being the Iron and Bamboo curtains, and there were times when the RB-69As actually crossed those borders. The Chinese shot down five of the seven, and nobody seems to know what happened to the two survivors. An “RB-69A” is on display at Warner-Robins Air Force Base, in Georgia, but it is actually an ex-Navy P2V painted in Air Force colors.
The Army was the third U.S. service to operate Neptunes. Six P2V-5s, redesignated as AP-2Es, served in Vietnam as radio-signal snoopers and jammers. Robert Cothroll was a voice-intercept operator aboard one of those AP-2Es from May 1970 through 1971, working for the intelligence staffs of Army ground units. “We flew over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos,” says Cothroll, listening to short-range tactical radio transmissions by the North Vietnamese Army. “We usually flew at around 130 knots, about as slow as we could. We made lazy ovals, never the same way twice. There was a lot of triple-A in the area, plus a couple of SAM sites. We weren’t shot at that often. One plane had a round go through a wing fuel tank,
but it exploded well above the aircraft. I think because we were passive—no armament—and were often with F-4s, they didn’t expose their gun sites to us. And they were holding their SAMs back for someone more important.”
One thing Cothroll particularly remembers about those 13-hour missions was that the Neptune lazed along in such a nose-high attitude that “Guys would complain that our buttocks were going to be disproportionate—one cheek bigger than the other—because we sat sideways and were always leaning slightly to the left.” Look at any side-view photo of a Neptune and you’ll see the substantial downward thrust line of the piston engines. This is an airplane that obviously was designed for loitering patrol flight, when the increased angle of attack would have put the engines at a normal attitude.
That side view also makes apparent one of the Neptune’s most distinguishing features: its oversize vertical tail. Some might assume the big tail fin was designed to enhance control during single-engine flight, but the rudder—the crucial engine-out control surface—is actually relatively narrow. The huge vertical stabilizer, however, creates great stability in low-altitude turbulence. “We got turbulence during monsoon season,” Cothroll remembers, “but nothing so bad you’d lose a cup of coffee. It was a pretty comfortable ride.”
“You have to be very aware of the crosswind component because of that big fin,” Russ Strine warns. “When you land and put the props into reverse, suddenly there’s no airflow over the fin, and the crosswind really grabs hold of it. They landed us at Oshkosh one time with a quartering tailwind. Jesus, what a scary episode that was. We lost control of the airplane momentarily and almost went off the runway. Went into reverse again and the airplane turned even harder, took out two runway lights.”
The Neptune’s tail featured an unusual “varicam,” a complex mechanism that altered the camber of the horizontal stabilizer, thus serving as an especially powerful trim tab but with lower drag. It was so effective that some pilots called it a super-elevator. The varicam helped trim out the varying center of gravity as Neptunes burned fuel on 10- to 13-hour missions, but its biggest benefit showed up during landings.
P2Vs were typically nose-heavy, especially with a forward CG at the end of a long mission, and more than a few unwary pilots landed them nosewheel first, which led to up-and-down porpoising on the runway. Three or four porpoises usually resulted in the nosegear collapsing. Proper P2V landing technique was to roll on increasing amounts of nose-up varicam as the power came off in the flare. “It takes all the control pressures off, and you can hold the yoke back in your gut, and the nosewheel stays off till you’re halfway down the runway,” says Strine.
Another Neptune characteristic was its sometimes-leaky, high-pressure hydraulic system. “It’s a hydraulic airplane, no question about it,” explains Strine. “Everything is hydraulic except the cowl flaps: landing gear, flaps, spoilers, varicam, bomb bay doors…it’s a 3,000-psi system.” One story has it that when a pencil-size cockpit line sprang a tiny leak, a new Navy copilot tried to stanch it with his thumb. The spray of hydraulic fluid continued…through his thumbnail.
The Neptune’s swan song was as a firebomber, starting in the late 1960s. At one point there were 33 Neptunes operating as borate bombers in the West—a high percentage of the approximately 40 P2Vs that survived military service (not counting those left to molder away in the Davis-Monthan Boneyard). The last seven firefighters were retired in 2017, largely replaced by British Aerospace BAe 146s, which carry half again as much retardant and have a service life of 80,000 hours versus the Neptune’s 15,000.
Today there are only two restored Neptunes still flying. The Australian Historic Aircraft Restoration Society operates a handsome P2V-7 painted in Royal Australian Air Force colors, and the Erickson Aircraft Collection, in Madras, Ore., regularly flies its -7 to airshows. Though the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum has grounded its Neptune, it could be relaunched after a thorough annual and some new tires and hydraulic and fuel hoses.
Unfortunately, airshow crowds are far more interested in B-17s, B-24s and B-29s than they are in this forgotten bomber.