Landing.

Looks like a P3 Orion.

Charles Gaines Thanks for the verification. I had the pleasure of a ride aboard one, once, but that’s over 40 years ago. Interesting aircraft, and riding in one of the observer seats in the big plexiglas blisters on the side was a real treat.

Kee Hinckley Back in the day (early 1974, I think), pretty much any military personnel could “hitch a ride” on an aircraft with capacity and going the right direction if one was trying to get from one place to another. That’s how I got my ride on a P3.

The flight was a lucky catch for me, as it was a “non-specific” training run scheduled to do a series of runs over one or more of the Great Lakes to simulate sub-hunting maneuvers (the purpose of the aircraft and crew). It was also supposed to drop off a few National Guard aviation personnel returning home, to various midwest locations, from their weekend service time. So I got to ride around for a day while they did some really fun maneuvers, quite a few at very (!) low altitude over the water. And a lot of landings and takeoffs by way of dropping off other personnel.

So it was no big thing for them to divert something like 100 miles, total, to the airport I had hoped to get to. Pilot asked the tower for a “brief stop at the terminal rather than the NatGuard hangar”, because I had a ride waiting there. He landed, rolled up to the passenger terminal, shut down the two engines on the side from which I would exit, dropped the stairs, and I got off. As soon as I was clear, a crewman pulled up the stairs while the pilot spun up the two engines, and they taxied out and departed. The aircraft’s time on the ground was less than 5 minutes, touchdown to wheels-up.

I was a lowly E4 at the time. A postal employee standing by his truck on the apron waiting for the mail pickup was quite surprised at all of this. As I walked past, he asked if I was the son of some admiral. Nope. Dating the admiral’s daughter? Nope. And by then I was gone into the terminal, leaving him puzzled, I’m sure.