The RAAF took delivery of the first P2V-5 Neptunes in 1952 with the 11 Squadron moving from their West Australian base to Richmond NSW. It was used again to great effect during the Falklands War in 1982, where the last two airframes in service (2-P-111 and 2-P-112) played a key role of reconnaissance and aiding the Argentine Dassault Super Étendards, particularly on 4 May attack against HMS Sheffield. To compliment the Neptune's AN/ASQ-8 Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) unit, which monitored minute disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the transit of submarines across it, the Neptune was equipped with a belly-mounted AN/APS-20 surface-search radar enabled detection of surfaced and snorkelling submarines at considerable distances.ĭuring the Vietnam War, the Neptune was used by the US Navy as a gunship, an overland reconnaissance and sensor deployment aircraft, and in its traditional role as a maritime patrol aircraft. To save weight and complexity of two separate fuel systems, the Westinghouse J34 jet engines on P2Vs burned the 115–145 Avgas fuel of the piston engines, instead of jet fuel. The P2V Neptune became one of the first aircraft in operational service to be fitted with both piston and jet engines designed to increase attack speed when required via the jet pods before throttling back to patrol speed via the piston driven propellers.
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