RAF Lockheed P-2 Neptune
 

Royal Air Force Coastal Command operated 50 odd P2V-5s, designated Neptune MR.1s as a stop-gap maritime patrol aircraft until the Avro Shackleton entered service. I understand they were used for Airborne Early Warning experiments as well as for maritime patrol.

My question ... How good was the Neptune as an AEW/MP platform as compared with the Shack ?

http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/207/pics/9_1.jpg

http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/207/pics/9_2.jpg

http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/207/pics/9_3.jpg

CS, I recall they were all held at RAF Silloth prior to being returned to the US. The P2V was in service with the RNlN in the 1970s. I guess it might have been quite good. As good as the Shack? I don't know.

RAF Neptune fates

A few picies here too.

Neptunes of Great Britain

Certainly better than no MPA...

Sorry, someone had to say it.

I expect they were quieter inside than the Shackletons!

Argentinian Neptunes
 

I believe the Neptunes were fitted with the APS-20, the same radar that was fitted to the Shackleton AEW Mk 2s.

As to how good the Neptunes were in comparison the the Shackletons, I reckon it was all down to the quality of the operator, as I am sure Pontious & Wenslydale will probably confirm.

During the Falklands conflict the ex-RAF Neptunes which were operated by the Argentinians were used to try to find our Task Force but I do not think they wre used in the AEW role.

CC, provided they were squawking or had 4 contra-rotating turbo props the Shack was the bees knees. Best I had was a pickup at 200 miles and lost contact some hours later at 225.

- I assume that's a typo :O . I flew a number of times with the Cloggies in their P2's - thoroughly enjoyed it, and yes it was much quieter than a Shack. She was pretty quick a low level too ....

Reynolds, at 200 miles? No they were definitely huge turbo props :}

Towards the end of their life one was doing an air display, possibly at Den Helder, when at approaching 300 kts (I was told) the co-pilot's hatch lifted. The senior officer in the co's seat grabbed it and hung on but I believe the pressure blew the tail cone off.

Not sure how true but a good yarn.

I have also seen a Shack doing 300 kts over the salt lake at Akrotiri. It was trialling the rear crew parachute explosive drogue deployment. I believe it worked but the risk of a live drogue gun in the cabin was assessed as too high.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...RAFNeptune.jpg

I took this photo at Biggin Hill during the 1954 Royal Observer Corps "Recognition Day". It shows RAF Neptune MR1 WX547 from the Fighter Command Vanguard Flight (1453 Flight) based at Topcliffe in Yorkshire.

Vanguard Flight Neptunes carried out some of the initial Airborne Early Warning Radar trials over the North Sea, but acording to Google they were not a success (see quote below).

Fairly sure there was an ex RAF Neptune for sale in the States a couple of years ago. Owner was hoping that someone in the UK would buy it and put in on the airshow circuit. Not aware of what happened after that though. Any ideas?

Thanks Chaps ... all good stuff ... much appreciated :ok:

I guess it goes to show how important the British Aircraft Industry was in our economic recovery post WII.

On paper two broadly similar platforms in terms of performance ...

Neptune Vmo 278 Kts, Op Range 1912 NM's - Shack Vmo 260 Kts, Op Range 1950 NM's.

It could be argued that the Neptune could have been more than a "stopgap" solution until the Shack entered service with the RAF. In pure financial terms buying "off the shelf fit for purpose" Neptunes would have been the cold hearted sensible option ... but yet the 188 Shaks built by Avro, along with other post war British aircraft designs, provided much needed employment.

If we discount the macro economic argument for a moment ... it would be really good to hear from anyone who has flown both types to get their perspective on both platforms.

It's interesting to speculate that had we gone down the Neptune route the RAF could well have taken the P-3 Orion for the maratime role. I know we then get in to the Nimrod debate following the commercial export failure of the Comet.


Best regards ... and Happy New Year !

Coff.

Where did the money come from for all this?

188 Shackletons? That's rather a lot of 27L V12 engines burning a boatload of (highly refined) gas.

There must have been a couple of thousand aircrew for that many aircraft, not to mention airfields and all the support infrastructure.

Shacks were contemporaneous with V-Bombers, Canberras, Hunters etc, of which there was a thousand or more.

The RAF's budget must have been ridiculous in those days. Same for the Royal Navy with a dozen or more capital ships and escorts aplenty, not to mention the FAA.

I can remember a Neptune at Bovingdon sometime in the mid 1950s,Shackletons were occasional visitors also,as Northwood was the Coastal Command HQ in those days, I guess Bovingdon was used as a communications airfield.Did Coastal Command have its own Communications Flight? The Metropolitan Comm. Flight was based at Bovingdon in those days.
Colin.

Roadster, in the early sixties it was said the V-bomber cost £1M. It was our most expensive aircraft. Accounting for inflation that is now less than £40 MILLIONS. Now I don't know how much the Defence vote has increased in that time.

I do recall around 1971 a VSO, possibly AMP, was appalled that the RAF Manpower bill accounted for over half the RAF Vote. Which is more important? Could you draw an arbitrary division between manpower and equipment?

Of course not long after we were shedding lots of transport crews -Beverly, Argosy, Britannia, Comet, and then Canberra.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/foru...html#msg160089

Gibson's new book "Battle Flight" might be of interest.

I understand that of the 188 Shacks built only 8 were exported to South Africa ... so thats a lot of metal built for the RAF ?

Not forgetting that a Mk4 Shack was proposed ...

http://avroshackleton.com/mark4_files/image002.jpg

Coff.

Yeah but, no but, yeah but.........
 

......in those days there were Shack squadrons in Changi, Aden,Malta,Gibraltar. 3x squadrons at Bally kelly plus ASWDU, 3x sqadrons at Kinloss plus MOTU, and 2 squadrons at St Mawgan. Approx 15 basic crews of 10 men each plus execs and assorted gash bodies; plus all the groundcrew (until centralised servicing came in) and you're well on the way to your 2000 bodies. T'was a different world then, innit.

The Ancient Mariner

Just to chip in, 20 V-bomber sqns would have about 2000 aircrew not including station, groups and command staffs. I would guess the other flying commands and air forces would have had similar numbers.

In 1961, not counting the small number of aircrew at Cranwell, the initial aircrew officer training intake was around 100 per month of which around 80 were pilots.

Given chop rates and deaths and assuming aircrew on 8 year commissions (some were on 5, others leaving at 12, 16 and 20) there would have been about 6,000 - 7,000 into productive service at that time. Aircrew above JOs were either wartime assimilated aircrew or Cranwell output.

When a Nav course graduated in 1991 they were told the RAF aircrew requirement was just 1,000.

KING6024

It was indeed. Both Coastal Command and Fighter Command Communications Squadrons were based at Bovingdon in 1956 when I was there as a member of FCCS.
Devons and Ansons were the standard workhorses for conveying C-in-C's, AOC's and others to the various stations in their commands.
Metropolitan Comms Flight used to be at Hendon and became FCCS I believe, but am not sure when the move to Bovingdon took place.

Metropolitan Comms Sqdn was at Northolt after Hendon closed. Fighter CCS and Coastal CCS were both at Bovingdon, joined by Bomber CCS when Booker closed as an RAF station in about '63, then the three amalgamated to form Southern Comms Squadron.
Last Neptunes I saw were operating off the Shetlands in Sep '72, when I was briefly stationed at Sumburgh as part of my ATCO Cadet training. They seemed to operate a patrol which took them southbound off the east coast of the islands, and never called Sumburgh approach, whilst Nimrods always did. I presume the Neptunes were Norwegian or Dutch.

The RAAF also operated Neptunes. Twelve of then if a recall correctly, replacing Lincolns.

The RAAF operated three marks of Neptune, (P2V4/5 and SP2H), 36 airframes in total. The P2vs entered service with 11 Sqn in the early 50s (1952-53?) and the sP2Hs with 10 Sqn in the early 60s (1962?). The P2Vs were before my time, but people who'd flown them told me they were not much more than Hudsons on steroids, but the SP2Hs were pretty capable ASW platforms in their day. They had a novel 'fuel dump' system - lighting up the two JP3s mounted outboard under the wings. This reduced fuel on board about as fast as any modern day fuel dump system!

Andu I am sorry that your information is wrong.

The RAAF operated 24 Neptune aircraft

2 P2V4 that were modified on the line by Lockheed to P2V5 standard to almost the same as the other 10. These were modified over the years and all guns removed and the MAD stingers and jets installed. These were operated by 11 Squadron.

10 Squadron took delivery of 12 PV5F in 1960 I believe.

Regards

Col

In terms of capability, the Argentinian Naval Aviation Neptune was still capable of assisting their aircraft in destroying our shipping. On top of that it** was costing us a lot of money in the mid 80's. Night after night it would trundle inbound before descending and disappearing off RADAR at the point we scrambled. Did we ever manage to get to it?

** Well as I remember it was a Neptune, but must stuff I've read since said they were retired by 86 so I can't confirm.

I recall doing the practice loading of Deep Sea Sunshine onto them (Dutch operated) down at St Mawgan. Close up, they looked astonishingly old and the thought of them lugging that sort of stuff around made me nervous.

We were fighting a war. A cold one perhaps, but very real for all that. We didn't get a chestful of medals for it, but we were defending the nation directly - which is what the armed forces are supposed to be for. :rolleyes:

ARI ...

How ironic as I believe the Argentinian Neptunes were ex RAF !


Best ...

Coff.

Coff, remind me who sold them an aircraft carrier and escorting destroyers? And some old bombers.

Then our cousin sold them a fair bit of useful kit too as did our old enemy.

Really the arms trade has a lot to answer for or we should embed auto-destruct mechanisms in all the kit we sell.

I believe one of the ex RAAF Neptunes is still flying out of Perth. An old mate of mine is involved with it.

PN ... sadly $'s are the currency of Satan at times ... as is the £ :(

Fareastdriver ... any chance we could get at bit of handling info from your mate ?

Best

Coff.

Col, you can see where I went wrong. I didn't read the small print. See: ADF Serials - RAAF A89 Lockheed P-2V Neptune I just counted the number in the left column.

As Shack crew in the 50/60s. we found our frquent task was to watch a Neptune on one.

On my first Herc squadron we had an Air Engineer who had been on Neptunes.
My recollection from chatting to him is that due to the complex nature of the
engines flying on one was not exactly an uncommon occurrence . Must be someone out there who can enlighten us.

Here is a pic of the SP-2H Neptune 0708/2-P-112 in the Air Naval Museum placed at Puerto Belgrano Naval Base, within Comandante Espora Air Naval Base. I understand that on May 4th 1982 this plane, when piloted by Corvette Captain Ernesto Proni Leston, detected the destroyer HMS Sheffield and gave her coordinates to the Super Etendards armed with Exocets :mad:

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9012219e.jpg

Here is a pic (©Wayne Mutza) of WX512 in storage at Silloth North England in April 1958 for delivery to Argentina.

http://www.verslo.is/baldur/p2/briti..._Lotow_256.jpg

So does anyone know if the Argies operated both P-2 and SP-2H variants or were P-2's converted ?

Coff.

OP's Q was which was best MPA, Neptune or Shackleton...and the A is of course a lemon. RAF believed long loiter over water was better on 4 than on 2; Liberators, which with ASV had closed the "Gap" in May,1943 and thus won the War, had to go in 1946 (or be bought and supported with scarce $), so we retrod Lancs. Pesky RN kept niggling for Maritime Air and even to Sandys/1957 found some Ministerial support for the evident logic (copy USN, please). The only reason feeble RAF procurement budget, 1948 took on Shackleton MR1 was that Tudor's failure meant something had to go into Chadderton as bridge to Vulcan. Avro and the entire military procurement process dribbled the programme...and then came Korea.

Under MDAP US loaned us (I have 52; others say 53) P2V-5/7 and part-funded 69 Shackleton MR.2. US did that (UK/France) in other cases of evident duplication (Noratlas:Packet), taking the view that any kit was better than Front Line emptiness. After July,1954 UK's priority into US taxpayers' pockets lapsed, so we dribbled Shackleton MR.3 as we returned MR P2V-7s. Much Coastal kit was US, common to P-2/3, either free on MDAP/MSP, bought, or licenced (e.g Gulton Industries Autolycus "sniffer"). W-34/Mk.101 Lulu NDB was taken under Project 'N', USMC custody at St.Mawgan/Macrihanish/Sigonella, shared access with RNethAF/USN, for inter-operation under SACLANT. There would have been no point in incurring expense/distraction of AWE to do a UK-solo NDB ex-fixed airfields. We did so from 9/2/1973,WE177A(NDB) for deployment at sea.

A to Q is: if you accept 4 beats 2, then...there's your A. If not, then inasmuch as more P2Vs flew longer with more Users, then that must have been "better".

Thanks Tornadoken ... that all sounds logical :ok:

Although I might be pushing my luck ... it would be good to get some info on the handling of the Neptune from some of our guys who flew it ... and perhaps the Shack.

Happy New Year all ...

Coff.

But....the plus side is being huge Piston Radials....you could still fly on parts of one!:ok:

A long time ago...
 

.....I watched as a Dutch Neptune came in to land at Bodo with his trailing HF aerial still out. He'd been struck by lightning and the aerial was welded to the bottom of the tube which held it away from the airframe. The lead weights which held it out bounced as it touched down and flew forwards in a great arc and the aerial wrapped itself around the prop. There was a very impressive screech as the engine stopped in a heart beat. Followed by a few days off.

The Neptunes used to have vey light whistling noisefrom the props as they taxied and a gentle moaning noise from the wheel brakes (air powered?). A vey evocative noise if heard on a dark night lying in one's pit in the mess at Kinloss. Mostly gratitude that it was someone else getting airborne at that time of the morning rather than me.

The Ancient Mariner

The situation in Australia is as follows.

A ex USN P2V7 which was brought down here to conduct air fire fighting. My understanding is that it is now stored with engines run fairly often at an ex war time airfield at Cundernan, about an hours drive from Perth. When I last saw it, it had been painted in very smart fire fighting colours. There is talk that it will now be converted back to military standards.

HARS own at least three Neptunes again both are dash seven models, one is ex RAAF 10 Squadron and flies often. The other is ex French navy and was given and salavaged to HARS. It was flown back to Australia and I believe is currently being brought back to air worthy.

They have another one which is incomplete and I believe is used for spares.

The RAAF has an early one serial I believe 302, whilst it is complete needs lots of work to get it to display standards. If it is 302 then it started life as a P2V4 in company with 301. Both these aircraft were converted to P2V5 standard partly, but I believe the flight deck area was not converted.

There is another 10 Squadron aircraft, complete but in poor condition ar Dubbo, it is up for sale with little interest mainly I suspect because of the cost of removal.

Regards

Col