Warlocks hang up their last Orion, Final LANT P-3

The Lockheed L-188 Electra airliner made its first flight on 6 December 1957, and within two years, a variant pitched to the Navy as an armed maritime patrol aircraft joined it. Soon to be accepted as the P-3 Orion, the first of 757 production models rolled off the assembly line in April 1961. Ironically, just 170 Electras were made, with its military sister much more prolific. Now, an extremely respectable 65 years later, one of the last of the Navy’s handful of operational Orions, BuNo 158912, the sole NP-3C of the “Warlocks” of Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1) out of Pax River, tasked with supporting the Naval Research Laboratory, has flown into the sunset. She was the last Atlantic Orion, with the service’s final trio of birds flying with the VX-30 “Bloodhounds” at NBVC Point Mugu. VQ-1 got out of the Orion game last year. Lockheed Orion BuNo 158912 (MSN 285A-5584) was born as a P-3C-145-LO and accepted by the Navy on June 28, 1973, serving with the NATC. She was later…