Aircraft Information
Aircraft Make: Lockheed
Aircraft Model: P-3
Aircraft Nickname: Orion
Aircraft Mil Civ Description: Airplane ME Turboprop
Category: Airplane
Class: Multi Engine Land
Engine Description: 3 or more Engine

First Flown Information
Sequence First Flown: 0
Date First Flown: 01/20/1982
Location First Flown: NAS Moffett Field, CA
Who and/or What Organization First Flown With: VP-31 Replacement Air Group

Aircraft Experience
As of: 05/08/2020
Number of Hours Flown: 2145
Number of Times Flown: 563
Other Aircraft Models Associated: P-3B, P-3C, NP-3, EP-3

Recollections: I don’t have a record of who I first flew with, but I was brand new to the P-3 “RAG”, VP-31 at NAS Moffett Field, and I DO remember my first flight.  It was a rainy day in the San Francisco area and my most vivid memory was the landing.  I was nervous and the airplane had a reputation as being difficult to land smoothly unless you floated way down the runway.  So, in I came to Moffett’s main runway, hoping to do my best.  I touched down right on the spot, smooth-as-can-be.  Selected reverse and came to a stop.  “Wow…nice landing Ensign!” came the word from the Flight Engineer.  I didn’t know the P-3 well at that point but I knew enough to know that I’d just made a really good landing.  I remember thinking “that wasn’t very hard, this thing is nice.”  It was probably the best landing I ever made in the “Mighty Orion”.  Beginner’s Luck.  The P-3’s wing, being immersed in those big 4 turboprops, depends a lot on the thrust setting for lift…so it was always dicey trying to get to a spot and land there smoothly, at least for me.  For guys like JB Hollyer (widely recognized as the greatest P-3 pilot of his generation), it was probably easy.  That was one of the things, for me,  that made the P-3 such a fun plane…that challenge of a good landing.  
–So many memories!  Working with the professionals of Crew 2 and Crew 7 who became my best friends.  Deployments and Detachments to Japan, Alaska, Philippines, the Indian Ocean, Africa and the Middle East.  Eventually commanding not only my own plane, but my own crew as a Mission Commander…at the age of 26!  Serving as a check airman, teaching the new guys.  And, later, while at the Test Pilot School, getting to shoot rockets, missiles and drop bombs (some “special ones”…though I can neither confirm nor deny anything) and–maybe the most fun of all–taking TPS students who’d never flown a big airplane up in the Orion.  Those flights were a blast and I got pretty good at predicting the common mistakes and letting the students go just enough to see a problem, yet be safe.
–If the T-28 was my “first girlfriend”, I guess the P-3 is my “first wife” (with deference to my REAL first wife).  She’s definitely in my “TOP 5”, not because she had the best cockpit (it wasn’t), or the best handling qualities (they weren’t) but because she was so much fun to operate, hunting subs and ships with my crew of 12–> it was like a game of chess and football all wrapped into one.  And, unlike your typical fighter guy, I actually got to “fight” against my enemy…launched on them but we tracked them with our sophisticated gear, got on top of them for the kill, opened the bomb-bay doors and did everything short of dropping a weapon…and we did it too many times to count.  It would be like a fighter getting “pipper on target” against a MIG scores of times.  And, the Mighty Orion brought me back safety….every, single time…in some horrible weather, into conditions and situations that other airplanes could not handle.  Like the time we showed up at our destination,  an undisclosed field in Oman and the field was socked-in.  The forecast had been VFR but there were clouds below us covering 100% of the water/ground.  We shot the only approach (an ADF) and the minimums were ABOVE the cloud tops.  Well, that’s not gonna work!   We considered diverting but (because it was supposed to be VFR) we didn’t have the gas (nor the diplomatic clearance).  So, because this airfield was on an island, we went 10 miles offshore, and descended into the goo, using the radar (operated in the back by a skilled “Sensor 3″…but, still, we in the cockpit were blind, relying on his verbal calls), hawked the RADALT and descended to 150 ft above the water (our minimums for flight over water was 200 ft) where we just started making out the water below us.  Proceeding inbound to the island, we dirtied up, got our bearings on the runway (again, all done verbally) and setup for a straight-in approach, level between 100 and 150 feet.   About a mile out, Sensor 3 says “we’re almost there” and we begin to see the faint outline of land.  We actually climbed up about 50 feet to be above the runway, slowed some more and plopped her down on the runway.  The Orion (and, more to the point, our crew!) had brought us back safely once again.