Lockheed P-3 Orion

Before I begin, I want to discuss some terminology. For brevity, when I write about multi-engine air tankers, I will use the term air tanker(s). If for some reason I need to refer to single engine air tankers, I will use the term SEATs (as I have been doing in recent entries). I believe that st. miles refers to statute miles. The number of gates refers to the retardant drop hardware on the air tanker. I thought it useful to define what an air tanker is and found this definition on an Interagency Airtanker Board webpage: “An airtanker is defined as an aerial delivery system configured for the purpose of dispensing water, fire retardant, or fire suppressant material from a fixed tank that controls the rate of delivery. The aerial delivery system includes the tank system and the aircraft.”

Finally, I again want to thank TL Stein for his help in providing me with the specifications and other pertinent data and information about the various air tankers that I am writing about.

The Lockheed P-3, like many other types of multi-engine air tankers used for aerial fire fighting, both currently flying and those “retired” from active service, are former military aircraft converted for use as air tankers. A four-engine turbo-prop, it’s military use was for submarine surveillance by the U.S. Navy. The military version, know as the Lockheed P-3 Orion was first put in military service around 1961. The wings sit low on the fuselage. It is a fast aircraft, can take-off on a shorter runway, can carries three thousand gallons of retardant.

Those of you who might be familiar with the air tankers currently under nationwide contract here in the U.S. might be aware that the Lockheed P-3 Orion was the successor to the U.S. Navy’s Lockheed P-2 (aka P2V) Neptune. The Lockheed P2V was also converted for use as a fire fighting air tanker. Given that the P2V has been around longer (first in service around 1945), it might make sense for me to write about the P2V first. I am unable to do that as I have a little more work to do before I write about the P2V. But stay tuned. The write up of the P2V will be coming soon.

Back to the Lockheed P-3.

Specs:

length (ft): 106
wing span (ft): 99
turning radius (ft): 65
cruise speed (mph): 275/320
range loaded (st. miles): 2,300
gross weight (lbs): 105,000
contract op.wt (lbs): 97,000
retardant loads: 3,000 gallons
number of gates: 1

Aero Union is the sole operator and fabricator of the P-3. In 2008, they had eight P-3’s on the federal contract air tanker list. You might want to spend a little time exploring their website to learn more about their P-3’s. Posting urls to specific web pages does not seem to work well, so I have not done this. However, if you click on flight operations in the menu on the left hand side of the page you will go to the flight operations web page where you may click on a link for aerial firefighting to learn more about their P-3 based aerial fire fighting program.

Aero Union also has a good P-3 photo gallery with some good shots of their P-3’s in action. From their main or home page, click on photo gallery to go to their main photo gallery then click on “Aero Union’s P-3’s in action”.

There are three good, short videos of P-3’s in action on you tube:

Tom's Branch Fire Retardant Drop
Bear Divide Hotshots, 2006

Updated on August 3, 2015: The US Forest Service terminated its contract with Aero-Union for their Lockheed P-3's, going out of business a month later. (see my articles of July 30, 2011, August 17, 2011, and January 18, 2012). The link to Aero Union's old website no longer work.

Updated on November 30, 2017: New link to Interagency Airtanker Board