Aviation History - July 2018

38 AH JULY 2018

“It” is the Lockheed P2V Neptune patrol

bomber, and that opinion comes from Russell

Strine, who flies the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s

fully restored P2V-7 (which is currently inactive,

since airshows can no longer afford the amount

of fuel it burns).

“We didn’t get there fast, but we always got

there,” says P2V-7 radioman Richard Boslow,

who flew in Neptunes from 1965 through 1967.

Richard Pickering started his patrol-bomber

career flying the Consolidated PB4Y-2, the U.S.

Navy’s single-tail version of the B-24, before

spending 4,500 hours in four different versions of

the Neptune. “I always felt that I was strapped to

the PB4Y and that the P2V was strapped to me,”

he comments.

“The P2V was very forgiving,” says Ron Price, a

sonobuoy operator with 2,500 hours in Neptunes

between 1962 and 1966. “The wings were flexi-

ble, which was a big help down low in turbulence.

I remember I had to look up to see the stack on

a Russian trawler.” The Neptune was designed

to absorb the low-altitude turbulence that was

inevitable during maritime surveillance and sub-

hunting. Make-do patrol bombers such as the

PB4Y-2 and the Royal Air Force’s Avro Shackle-

COLD WARRIOR

A P2V-7 of VP-18

flies past the Soviet

freighter Okhotsk,

searching for nuclear

weapons during the

Cuban Missile Crisis

in October 1962.

“IT’S A PILOT’S AIRPLANE. IT HAS GREAT HANDLING

QUALITIES; IT’LL DO WHAT YOU WANT IT TO DO

WHEN YOU WANT IT. IT’S JUST A PLEASURE TO FLY.”