Ok so cool we are publishing! it is the second of September
2015 Year of the wooden sheep! we are looking at the Neptune Patrol bomber built by Lockheed this aircraft was an intrum
nuclear bomber too! which means it's job was to take off from an aircraft carrier and land on an airfield or ditch into the
sea after a nuclear bomb run! If one should happen! It had both small jet engines and big powerful piston engines and could
be operated to-gether or shut down for economical long range cruise! the name Neptune is some king of the ocean that lived
on the Bottom of the sea and it is the name of a Planet Last year or so ago they discovered the 14th moon of Neptune and the
Planet Pluto was known as a trans-neptunian planetary body. Back in the old days where the constitution of the United States
was first read out loud in public is suppose to be an old observatory and it was occuipied by the British for a while
they said after the Planet Neptune is the planet Uranus they were going to call it George after King George True story!)We
think this is doubly interesting as Princess Diana was related to George Washington we noticed greatly after her death! As
we write this ( Tinker), Me and my computer man Jell are listening to his fantastic computer music machine to King Crimson
"Starless)!From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Lockheed P-2 Neptune (designated P2V by the United States Navy prior to September 1962) was a Maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. It was developed for the US Navy by Lockheed to replace the Lockheed PV-1 Ventura and PV-2 Harpoon, and being replaced in turn with the Lockheed P-3 Orion. Designed as a land-based aircraft, the Neptune never made a carrier landing, although a small number of aircraft were converted
and deployed as carrier launched stop-gap nuclear bombers which would have to ditch or recover at land bases. The type was
successful in export and saw service with several armed forces.
Design and development[edit]
Development of a new land-based patrol bomber began early in World War II, with design work starting
at Lockheed's Vega subsidiary as a private venture on 6 December 1941.[1] At first, the new design was considered a low priority compared to other aircraft in development at the time, with
Vega also developing and producing the PV-2 Harpoon patrol bomber. On 19 February 1943, the U.S. Navy signed a letter of intent for two prototpe XP2Vs, which was confirmed by a formal contract on 4 April 1944 with a further 15 aircraft being ordered
10 days later.[2] It was not until 1944 that the program went into full swing.[3] A major factor in the design was ease of manufacture and maintenance, and this may have been a major factor in the
type's long life and worldwide success. The first aircraft flew in May 1945. Production began in 1946, and the aircraft was
accepted into service in 1947.
Beginning with the P2V-5F model, the Neptune became one of the first aircraft in operational
service to be fitted with both piston and jet engines. The Convair B-36, several Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter, Fairchild C-123 Provider, and Avro Shackleton aircraft were also so equipped. To save the weight and complexity of two separate fuel systems, the jet engines on the P2Vs
did not burn jet fuel- they burned the same fuel as the piston engines: 115–145 Avgas. The jet pods were fitted with
intake doors that were kept closed when the J-34s were not running to prevent them from windmilling, allowing for economical
piston-engine-only long-endurance search and patrol operations. In normal U.S. Navy operations, the jet engines were run at
full power (97%) to expedite and assure all takeoffs, then shut down when the aircraft reached a safe altitude. Also, the
jets were started and kept running at flight idle during low-altitude (500 feet during the day and 1,000 feet at night) anti-submarine
and/or anti-shipping operations at sea as a safety measure in case one of the radials developed problems.
Normal crew
access was via a ladder on the aft bulkhead of the nosewheel well to a hatch on the left side of the wheel well, then forward
to the observer nose or up through another hatch to the main deck. There was also a hatch in the floor of the aft fuselage,
near the sonobuoy chutes.