50 Years of P-3s

[HAL Pilot]

Here's an article from Lockheed on 50 years of P-3s in the Navy.

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=107

 

[robav8r]

Good article - lots of history there.

 

[picklesuit]

The picture album was pretty cool, good find!

 

[KBayDog]

Love the picture of the crosscut saw.

Any idea of the age of the oldest Orion still in service? How about the oldest one anyone on here has flown?

 

[xj220]

I think I flew on one that was made in 68, definitely ones from the early 70s though.

 

[CommodoreMid]

I've flown some 157 BUNOs

 

[SynixMan]

I read the NASA Wallops birds are the oldest, and they still fly regularly.

 

[scoolbubba]

The bird I took out on the road last week was a 1973 model.

 

[Flugelman]

Flew on P-3A BuNo 152169 back in early 70's. We had one P-3A older in the 150XXX range which we used as a project aircraft but my memory fails me on the BuNo.

An interesting website here with lots of detail, although I found some erroneous dates.

 

[zab1001]

151384, 1964

 

[Flash]

I've flown some 157 BUNOs

All the EP-3Es when I was in the squadron were 156s from '68/'69 or so, they had been pulled form the boneyard and converted.

I am pretty sure I have a 150XXX in my logbook, we had two VP-3As in VQ-1 until the late 90s, as well as a UP-3B that is now NASA's NP-3B test bird. IIRC PACFLT had a 149XXX VP-3A in the late 90s too, rougher/more worn looking cockpit than I expected for a VIP bird.

 

[scoober78]

156507...late 67 I think.

 

[Alpha_Echo_606]

I have all the BUNOs of all the P3s I've worked on written down, it appears the oldest one is a 152XXX.

 

[PropAddict]

We had a 158XXX bird that turned 35 on deployment. We threw her a birthday party, complete with cake, party hats, and schwarma.

Ah, deployment. . .