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Question for the MPA folks out there - 5/10/2016 10:04:19 AM

Gunner98

Posts: 5508
Joined: 4/29/2005
From: The Great White North!
Status: offline

I know there are some P-3 guys out there who can probably answer this one in a heart beat.

Doing some background reading and work for the Northern Fury series and in the process I'm getting confused as to the number of aircraft that were normally in a VP squadron. I though it was 9 but some places say 8 and some 12 per squadron. I understand that there were probably some local variations but there was probably a standard 'establishment' number.

Can someone help me pin that one down?

Thanks

B

Post #: 1

RE: Question for the MPA folks out there - 5/10/2016 10:48:41 AM

jimcarravall

Posts: 642
Joined: 1/4/2006
Status: offline

Here's an article on the deployment of the first P-8 Squadron with some background on how many P-3s were available at the time it was written (February, 2013)

http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2013/02/27/first-operational-p-8a-poseidon-squadron-readies-for-deployment/

And, here's some information from 2009 regarding the number of squadrons and mandatory aircraft numbers kept active to support them:

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=1100&tid=1400&ct=1

Assuming the writer of the first article was in the Navy during the NF era, it looks like there were no more than 240 aircraft to spread among 24 active squadrons.

Numbers authorized per squadron would vary down from a nominal 10 per squadron based on the ratio of what the Navy allocates to active duty while cycling aircraft through usable life extension overhaul programs.

The Army would attempt to budget for approximately a three percent addition to its total production requirements to provide a readiness float complement that accounted for cycling battle damaged vehicles and vehicles worn beyond usable limits back to long term depot level repair and overhaul activities. Aircraft have a shorter duration between overhauls to maintain usable life and would subtract a larger percentage of "float" from its active duty units to sustain each deployed unit's combat readiness.

_____________________________

Take care,

jim

(in reply to Gunner98)

Post #: 2

RE: Question for the MPA folks out there - 5/10/2016 11:30:31 AM

Gunner98

Posts: 5508
Joined: 4/29/2005
From: The Great White North!
Status: offline

Thanks Jim

Interesting, that's good stuff.

I know that in addition to the 24 Active squadrons there were 12 Reserve squadrons and 2 training squadrons.

According to this ref: https://archive.org/details/DictionaryOfAmericanNavalAviationSquadronsVolume2

VP-30 maintained 24 AC in Jacksonville
VP-31 maintained 22 AC in Moffett Field
VX-1 in Patuxen River had 4 AC
There were probably several others floating around, I think 5% is probably a good guess. So 12-14 which would probably include the VX-1 allotment.

According to this one: http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/p3-orion/ there were 227 but no date, and 700 built world wide.

Digging out 'Jane's 90-91' (pp 434) there were 267 P-3C's delivered to USN and it has 25 squadrons plus the 12 reserve squadrons of which 0nly 2 had 'C' versions. The reference above however has 8 of the 12 reserve squadrons converting to 'C's.

The conversion web of who got which update seems a mess as well.

OK more digging required.

Thanks for your help

(in reply to jimcarravall)

Post #: 3