I miss days like this…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Lots of folks don’t believe the venerable old P-3s ever do anything ‘interesting’…



We did more than a few ‘strange’ things over the years, of course back then we didn’t have video cameras…

And it does get a ‘tad’ windy and noisy when you open the door in flight! 🙂

Good memories… Sigh…

Comments

I miss days like this… — 14 Comments

  1. 15 years ago, I lived a couple miles from the end of the runway at Brunswick NAS. Loved to watch the P-3s fly in and out. It is a very impressive, versatile aircraft.

  2. It’s a lot easier to leave a P-3 on a static line when you have a lot of crap strapped on. This wasn’t a combat jump. It was a 3K meter drop with what appears to be a T-10 style shute (likely some panels pulled off so that they could direct the canopy).

    Was that a Knox Class Frigate down below?

    I’ve never jumped from a P-3 but I’d expect that it would be a pleasant experience because it has a relatively slow stall speed. The SEALs scraped down the fuselage because of the haliburton cases and pelican cases that they had their gear in.

    I’m sure that the MiGs simply wanted to make sure that the P-3 was safe…

  4. That’s not a particularly low drop. As a former paratrooper, 800 feet was the standard altitude.

    Looking at the P3 door, it can see that it was never really set up as a jump aircraft. I would have been more than a little apprehensive about jumping out of it.

  6. George- Yep, good birds!

    LL- It was a Spru can… And yeah, when y’all went out the door, crap usually did scrape unless it was a free fall…

    Ed- LOL, probably…

    Sean- True, but we put a lot of ‘stuff’ out those doors… Parts, medicine, people, etc.

    Murph- Yep, Taiwan still uses them!

  7. The F-5 had Sidewinders, the the F-18 did not have any air to air missles.

    I guess the cold steely glare of USN aviators are weapons enough.

    Gerry

  8. Long ago, while doing a demonstration jump with the Leap Frogs, they asked if we could hover at 11,000 AGL. Needless to say, they had to change their display when we told them we couldn’t even FLY at 11,000 AGL. Everybody made it safely, but the guy who was supposed to demonstrate a malfunction and cut away his main, really malf’ed. Noone but us knew what really happened.

  11. Gerry- LOL, probably the ready 10 bird…

    Don- 11K??? WTF were they thinking???

    Opus- Thanks!

    WSF- You’re welcome

  14. The P-3s on Adak did a lot of crazy things (as I’m sure you know) while I was there. Used to love hanging around the aircrews when they got to comparing notes. 🙂