"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Gord Beaman" ) writes:
"John Keeney" wrote:



The Neptune came in multiple flavors: P2V-1, P2V-3 and P2V-5
were twins with various flavors of R-3350s. The P2V-7 on the other
hand had a pair of J34s to go along with its flavor of R-3350s.
If you start talking foreign version, the Japanese even had a turbo
prop version.
I don't have the production figures handy to check the statement
that "most" had four engines.


Well, that was just off the top of my head John...seeing as how
there seemed to be many more -7's around than earlier marks and
they all seemed to have the jets...matter of fact it was so
widely believed that when some stranger at a flea market remarked
in my hearing range that the model P2V-7 he was looking at was a
fake because it had no jets I had to correct him.

The argument got quite heated and ended when I bet him (in a firm
voice) $100.00 (and produced it) that the RCAF had flown the
P2V-7 like that for awhile. (The fact that I have about 100 hours
on them helped my confidence)

He'll likely be more careful about loud public statements in
future...

It's how we learn, I guess. A lot of P2V-5s had the jets, too. I
have a P2V-5/P-2E Natops Manual kicking around here, and the jets are
definitely there. In fact, there are no takeoff distance charts for
recip-only operation - the jets were to be used on every takeoff, I
guess. (Although, being J34s, they really don't contribute all that
much - both jeta at 100 kts would give you about 1800 HP, or half an
engine's worth of thrust. Still, there's no power like Excess Power.

I had suspected there were retrofits, but couldn't produce any references
quickly. What I have did show the P2V-5s as starting life jetless.