A great article from the current issue of Air and Space Smithsonian about a Navy Reserve crew tasked with taking a P-3 Orion to an air show.
I Got Those Old Beat-Up Orion Blues
There's show horses and there's work horses. The P-3 is definitely a work horse, especially when flown by crews who know their stuff. The story in the article makes me laugh...and want a P-3. How bad could the fuel burn be?
Excellent story! Thanks Murph.
ReplyDeleteBeen a passenger on a few Lockheed Electras, mainly Reeves Aleutian. Those four Allisons will set your back in your seat. Doubt the P-3s are much on passenger comfort, but the Electras were nice.
ReplyDeleteHeh... That sucker looks BETTER than most of the ones 'we' took to airshows... And we've backed out of a few parking places over the years, much to the dismay of the USAF... But you could have some fun with flight demonstrations... Light gross wt, suck the gear up, hold it down till the end of the runway and yank it back, you could get 6000FPM rate of climb real easily... And flying by the crowd with three in the bag was always good for a WTF response from the crowd! Max cruise was 4400-4800PPH... About 730gal/hr. The BEST tweak on the USAF though, was a Navy refueling demo! Nothing like seeing an S-3 or A-6 'towing' an F-14 in front of the crowd at 400 feet, then banking and climbing out!!!
ReplyDeleteLet's see...730gal/hr. x $6.55 gal...
ReplyDeleteYeah, maybe NOT a P-3 in my future.
But 6000fpm climb...sigh.
Great story, thanks for finding it.
ReplyDelete"Let's see - we've got the Skyhawk over there, plus the Skymaster, Stearman, the F-86 Sabre, a DC-3 - yeah, let's knock out this wall and add 80' to the slab and raise the trusses. We might be able to shoehorn that P-3 in here. You wanna add another 45' to make room for a Sopwith Camel for Murphy?"
ReplyDeleteDouble Fake Bob VIla for This Old Hangar