P-3C Orion; Weapon System Description LR 27955

Burbank, CA: Lockheed-California Company [A Division of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation], 1977. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Comb binding. Good/No dust jacket issued. Various paginations (approximately 160 pages--tabbed sections--xiii, [1], 7 [1], 29 [1], 4, 21 [1], 40, 15 [1], 7 [1], 5 [1], 21 [1], 4 pages). Cover quite worn and soiled, with ink notes on the front. Interior in better condition. The sections are: Summary, List of Figures, List of Tables, Introduction, General Description, Aircraft Structure, Aircraft Systems, Avionics, Armament System, Maintainability and Maintenance Support, Weight and Balance, Aircraft Performance, and Configuration and Growth Capability. The material herein is an updated version of the classified (Confidential ) document LR 26452, dated January 28, 1974, and describes the Weapon System of the UPDATE II Aircraft. All classified information has been deleted from this publication, but LR 26452 remains the reference for classified specification data and weapon system capabilities. Developed during the Cold War, the P-3's primary mission was to localize Soviet Navy ballistic missile and fast attack submarines detected by undersea surveillance systems and eliminate them in the event of full-scale war. At its height, the U.S. Navy's P-3 community consisted of twenty-four active duty "Fleet" patrol squadrons home based at air stations in the states of Florida and Hawaii as well as bases which formerly had P-3 operations in Maryland, Maine, and California. The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995. The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engined, turboprop anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. Lockheed based it on the L-188 Electra commercial airliner. The aircraft is easily distinguished from the Electra by its distinctive tail stinger or "MAD" boom, used for the magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) of submarines. Over the years, the aircraft has seen numerous design developments, most notably in its electronics packages. Numerous navies and air forces around the world continue to use the P-3 Orion, primarily for maritime patrol, reconnaissance, anti-surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare. A total of 757 P-3s have been built. In 2012, it joined the handful of military aircraft including the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, Lockheed C-130 Hercules and the Lockheed U-2 that the United States military has been using for more than 50 years. The Boeing P-8 Poseidon will eventually replace the U.S. Navy's remaining P-3C aircraft. In August 1957, the U.S. Navy called for proposals for replacement of the piston-engined Lockheed P2V Neptune (later redesignated P-2) and Martin P5M Marlin (later redesignated P-5) with a more advanced aircraft to conduct maritime patrol and antisubmarine warfare. Modifying an existing aircraft should save on cost and to allow rapid introduction into the fleet. Lockheed suggested a military version of its L-188 Electra, then still in development and yet to fly. In April 1958, Lockheed won the competition and was awarded an initial research-and-development contract in May. Lockheed modified the prototype YP3V-1/YP-3A, Bureau Number (BuNo) 148276 from the third Electra airframe c/n 1003.[5] The first flight of the aircraft's aerodynamic prototype, originally designated YP3V-1, took place on 19 August 1958. While based on the same design philosophy as the Electra, the aircraft differed structurally; it had 7 feet (2.1 m) less fuselage forward of the wings with an opening bomb bay, and a more pointed nose radome, a distinctive tail "stinger" for detection of submarines by MAD, wing hardpoints, and other internal, external, and airframe-production technique enhancements. The Orion has four Allison T56 turboprops, which give it a top speed of 411 knots (761 km/h; 473 mph) comparable to the fastest propeller fighters, or even to slow high-bypass turbofan jets such as the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II or the Lockheed S-3 Viking. Similar patrol aircraft include the Soviet Ilyushin Il-38, the French Breguet Atlantique and the British jet-powered Hawker Siddeley Nimrod (based on the de Havilland Comet). The first production version, designated P3V-1, was launched on 15 April 1961. Initial squadron deliveries to Patrol Squadron Eight (VP-8) and Patrol Squadron Forty-Four (VP-44) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, began in August 1962. On 18 September 1962, the U.S. military transitioned to a unified designation system for all services, with the aircraft being renamed the P-3 Orion.