JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The P-3 Orion, a maritime hunter that has patrolled the skies and seas for more than six decades, has recently received its last depot-level service at Fleet Readiness Center Southeast (FRCSE).

At FRCSE and throughout the Navy, the P-3 is a heavy-weight that has made its mark on history. And as the operational Navy completes its transition to the P-8, the folks at Fleet Readiness Center Southeast have said a bittersweet goodbye to the P-3 program.

“In the 40 years that FRCSE has served as the depot source of repair for the P-3, hundreds of personnel spanning generations have worked on several configurations of this aircraft,” said FRCSE Commanding Officer Col. Fred Schenk. “The Orion is a dependable machine that has an outstanding safety record. We all were sad to see the last one depart.”

Known for its reliability, advanced detection capabilities and long missions, it isn’t surprising that the P-3 was one of the fleet’s go-to aircraft. It saw our nation through some of its most intense conflicts, such as the Vietnam and Gulf Wars and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The aircraft has been around a long time. You have multi-generational pilots and aircrew who have been on the plane, and their family members have been on the plane – fathers and sometimes even grandfathers,” said Cmdr. Adam Schantz, a former P-3 pilot and flight test officer at FRCSE. “They all cherish the aircraft because it takes them on long missions, long flights – 10 hours, 12 hours sometimes 14 hours – and the plane has consistently brought them home safe and sound.”

Primarily used for submarine detection, search and rescue missions and surveillance, the P-3 can carry a vast array of payload while flying close to the ocean’s surface. Missions, which varied from patrolling at just a few hundred feet above the sea to surveillance at higher altitudes, often lasted 12 hours or more, thanks to its ability to carry large amounts of fuel and loiter for long periods of time.

“I’ve gone to places that were so far up, for instance, up in the artic, that took 1000 miles to get there,” said Leroy Daul, an FRCSE quality assurance specialist and former P-3 flight engineer. “That’s two and a half hours of transit time. Then, we’d do an eight-hour mission 200 feet off of the water the whole time. The P-3 is one of the most under-recognized and maybe underappreciated aircraft the Navy has in the fleet.”

But that isn’t all. The P-3 has seen action with the Coast Guard, Customs & Border Protection and it is still used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to fly into some of our world’s deadliest storms. The two P-3s used in hurricane hunting, lovingly referred to as Kermit and Ms. Piggy, have visited FRCSE for maintenance, upgrades and other types of rework.

“You have many areas on this aircraft – horizontal, engine, landing gear, flaps, elevators, rudder – so many opportunities for work,” said Angello Evans, a former FRCSE P-3 product team lead. “The good thing about it is a lot of those components come off the P-3 and they ride throughout the back shops and gave other shops work too.”

According to Evans, the depot has conducted the gamut of work on this aircraft. Because of the frequency that the P-3 was used in low altitude missions, corrosion and fatigue issues were common. From scheduled depot-level maintenance to special service inspections, Evans admits that the workload has been nothing short of a challenge over the years.

“This aircraft was a favorite among so many artisans because it’s durable, reliable and can be modified into various configurations depending on how it will be used,” said Evans. “It was a challenge to do the work, but in a way that made the artisans feel proud about their contributions.”

It’s clear that the P-3 was a part of the foundational beginning for FRCSE. Over the P-3’s 60 year lifetime serving the United States Navy, FRCSE was the depot source of repair for more than 40 years, making it not just a familiar aircraft but beloved by civilian workers and military personnel alike.

“The people who worked on the P-3, I would say, were pioneers. The engineering team we had, the artisans and all who supported the aircraft; we came up with solutions to problems that people said couldn’t be solved,” said Anthony Petrizzo, a former production line supervisory engineer with FRCSE. “We were required to keep this aircraft flying. There were no other replacements. We had to do this so the Navy could meet its mission.”

FRCSE returned its last Orion to the fleet in May and plans to hold a retirement ceremony once the pandemic is over. Many artisans who previously worked on the P-3 have transitioned to the F-5 adversary aircraft production line.