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DTV for the Poseidon and Archive Bits - Eddie Douglas

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It is not often that any of us get a chance to photograph a brand new military aircraft overhead our home but that’s what happened at Prudhoe, Northumberland on Wednesday 1st October 2014 when a Boeing P-8A Poseidon overflew en route to Durham Tees Valley Airport (DTV) . I was sat at the computer doing a few bits after a clear sky and busy day at Newcastle Airport the day before that had produced a lot of aircraft activity including two jurassic AN-12s and I had forgotten that the SBS and radio were still connected. Suddenly and very loudly “Navy LN045” called Newcastle Approach with flight details and inbound information to DTV. A check on the SBS showed a plot about 10 miles north of the house heading south east and going to pass directly overhead and at that moment thinking it to be a P3 Orion and with complete cloud cover overhead I almost did not bother to go outside but something told me to try. To my astonishment a 737 broke through the solid cloud cover directly overhead and with camera at the ready and on full telephoto a poor quality shot was taken before the aircraft again entered the cloud but it was good enough to make out the Navy title on the rear fuselage – talk about luck (168756).  All that had happened quickly in a few minutes and things fell into place thereafter and the 737 was identified as the US Navy P-8A Poseidon 168756 c/n 42252 going into DTV for its deployment as part of the exercise Volcanex.  This is a European Air Group (EAG) exercise taking place near RAF Leeming between 4-17 October and focuses on tactical interoperability and is designed to test, validate and refine EAG products and maritime aircraft are also operating from Leeming. This is the first time that a UK multinational maritime exercise, that was once the JMC (Joint Maritime Course), has moved away from the Moray Firth coast and Lossiemouth and Kinloss so it will be interesting to see how this exercise develops in the future with the introduction of modern net centric operations and more capable aircraft like the Poseidon. The DTV aircraft is probably the sixteenth production machine and was delivered to the Jacksonville Naval Air Station, Florida on the 4th January 2014 and is one of three delivered this year under the Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP). A programme of this type allows the gradual production and introduction of new aircraft and systems to meet hardware and software developments and the inevitable budget constraints. Although no unit marks were carried the LN code has been used for many years by VP-45 squadron “Pelicans” at Jacksonville and the Poseidon using that callsign may be allocated to them.

With a family trip down to York on Friday, 3rd October already planned it gave me the chance to visit DTV to see if the Poseidon was around knowing that it might spend a lot of time hangered but to my surprise it was parked out on Stand 1 where reasonable but not brilliant photos were possible (168756).  The markings carried were 756 on the nose and on top of the tail with a full colour star and bar and Navy titles on the rear fuselage but no squadron markings were visible on the port side. The Bu number and type were under the tail in the usual small text and an equally small NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command) logo. This command is based at Patuxent River NAS, Maryland and has personnel stationed at eight locations in the USA including Jacksonville NAS with its mission to provide support to naval aviation and weapons, including research, development, test and evaluation. I am sure there will be many DTV locals and others will get much better photographs during the aircraft’s deployment time and I look forward to seeing them.

It was when photographing the Poseidon tail assembly (168756) that some deep down sub-conscious memory was triggered that I had done something similar many years ago and it took the ageing brain cells a few hours to make the connection back some 50 years ago to 13th March1963.  The occasion was the first reported visit and Atlantic crossing of the brand new P-3A Orion to the UK shores (149671) at a time when it was replacing the ageing US Navy P2 Neptune fleet.  The aircraft was 149671/LC1  of VP-8 Squadron that was the Fleets first operational unit based at Patuxent River NAS and was visiting RAF Turnhouse, now Edinburgh Airport, on route from Northolt to Fornebu in Norway.  It had also been reported at Ballykelly in Northern Ireland that was the base of 204 Squadron with Shackleton MR2s another important part of the NATO anti submarine defence structure during the Cold War. The Orions visit to Edinburgh was probably linked to the role of nearby Pitreavie Castle in Fife that was then the UK co-ordination centre for maritime based search and rescue missions.  The aircraft colour scheme was the dark sea blue and white that most of the US Navy patrol aircraft carried at that time and was being gradually being replaced by the grey and white that came to be standard in the latter 1960’s. Up to that time the Neptune squadrons were also frequent visitors to Turnhouse with P2V-7S 148355 of VP-21 squadron and Prestwick P2V-7 147960 of VP-11 on regular patrol missions and for JMC type exercises, but from 1963 onwards the visits declined as the Orion rolled off the production line and entered widespread squadron service in the Atlantic Fleet.

In the modern way of recycling resources a number of these Neptune and Orion aircraft have found their way back on to the civilian market as fire bombers, having ended their US military career after spending some time in the AMARC storage facility at Davis Monthan in Arizona.  A visit there in 1986 found the Neptune storage area to be vast but by 1992 only a few remained and an overflight photo (ED_p3 aerial) of a small part of the Orion storage area showed how quickly things had changed in only six years. From storage both types went on to their new careers as fire bombers in a variety of different and gaudy colour schemes operated by a number of companies doing work for the forestry services in North America. When I first encountered the fire bombers at Alamagordo in New Mexico during November 1986 the Neptune conversion programme was well underway and twelve aircraft were present, including ex US Navy P2V5-Fs N96278  and N98555  and in addition to converted aircraft a number recently from storage at Davis were present including P2V-5 N13859. In a more recent visit to the Forestry Service facility at Lancaster, California during October 2011 it was good to see the Neptune very active during the fire season and turned out in superb condition with and ex P2H N4235N parked out, fuelled up with retardant  and all ready to go to the next emergency.  So all in all a good link between the brand new Poseidon at DTV and its predecessor maritime types a number of which are still around carrying out important tasks.

For Info the P8 flew the following missions during its stay at DTV

Tuesday 7th October     0920 - 1404    callsign  " Six Mike Zulu"

Friday 10th October      1421 - 1859    callsign "Zero India Quebec"

Saturday 11th October  0958 - 1626    callsign "Oscar Four Alpha"

Monday 13th October    0941 - 1545    callsign "Papa One Papa"

Tuesday 14th October   0938 - 1615    callsign " Nine Kilo Oscar"

Wednesday 15th October  1041 - 1645 callsign "Nine Foxtrot Delta"

The aircraft returned home on Friday 17th as Navy LN-45 departing at 1138

 

Eddie Douglas  10.10.14

 


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