The U.S. Military Finds a Way to Complete Challenging Missions

U.S. forces have a history of flying spectacular aircraft..

The P-3 Orion might not be the flashiest airplane, but not every military aircraft needs to look—and perform—like a supersonic fighter jet. Sometimes, steady and subsonic wins the day. Such was the case with Lockheed’s P-3, a long-range patrol aircraft powered by four turboprop engines. When the U.S. Navy needed an airplane that could track and engage missile-armed Soviet submarines during the Cold War, the P-3 was the right airplane for the job.

In this issue’s cover story, former P-3 pilot Robert Bernier reports on the origins and legacy of an airplane that was in production for more than 40 years. The Navy retired the P-3 from active-duty patrol squadrons in 2019, after sending the airplanes across the globe on anti-submarine warfare and multiple other missions for decades. The vastness and depth of the world’s oceans would seem to give every advantage to submerged vessels, but the Orion was equipped with a sophisticated suite of sensors and avionics that enabled it to detect its underwater prey.

No matter how well-designed an airplane is, though, its success in executing the mission depends on the people flying it. P-3s were staffed by dedicated 12-person crews who regularly flew 16-hour missions. While interviewing some of them for Air & Space Quarterly, Bernier notes their enthusiasm for the thrill of the hunt all these years later. In 1979, a Soviet Echo II submarine was stalking the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier, which was sailing near Japan. A tactical coordinator aboard the P-3 that was dispatched to intercept the sub vividly remembers the mission: “We went ‘active’ on him, dropped pingers, and pinged him while doing simulated attacks. The whole crew got excited, got into it. And, yeah, we got him to detach. It was the best anti-submarine warfare flight of my career.”

Our latest issue reports on another airborne hunter: the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. The P-61 was assigned to multiple theaters in World War II, and what distinguished it from other U.S. fighters was a nose-mounted radar that gave the Black Widow night vision. The P-61 was large for a fighter—66-foot wingspan, dual engines, a twin-boom configuration, multiple guns and other ordnance. All that hardware required a three-person crew to operate: pilot, radar-observer, and gunner. 

Aiding Black Widow crews in their ability to sneak up behind enemy airplanes and attack them with gunfire was the stealthiness afforded by the aircraft’s high-gloss black paint. The first Black Widows manufactured by Northrop rolled out in a military-standard olive drab and gray, which didn’t do much to conceal the aircraft in low-visibility conditions. A flat black paint was tried before it was discovered that glossy black had the best cloaking effect.

P-61s flew combat missions for only the last year of World War II, but that gave them enough time to prove that detecting and eliminating enemy aircraft at night was possible. Outfitting an airplane with its own radar would become the standard for virtually all U.S. military aircraft that succeeded the Black Widow. 

Northrop manufactured a total of 706 units, most of which were scrapped after the war. Only four airframes remain. One of them, a P-61C, is on display at our Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. This aircraft—U.S. Army Air Forces serial number 43-8330—was manufactured too late for the war. But had it been called to fly combat missions at night, it too would have been the right airplane for the job.

Christopher U. Browne is the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the National Air and Space Museum.

This article is from the Winter 2025 issue of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum's signature magazine that explores topics in aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to today. Explore the full issue.

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