Retired but still serving

In honor of PalmPilot manservant of PalmTreePundit.

Something caught the corner of my eye today. Watching the fire season wars out west, I saw a couple of familiar figures flying across my screen.

The great submarine hunters from WWII through today are still serving in another unending war. Fighting fires. Just some cool eye candy for those plane nuts.

All Navy planes, of course.....

PBY from WWII fame .

PB4Y2 (just retired from tanking a couple of years ago)

S-2 Tracker

P-2V Neptune

P-3 Orion

There are a couple of good sites about these firefighting tankers. airtanker.com (make sure and look on the "Tankers" page for the goodies). oldprops.com has some great photos, most non-tanker related. As a reminder that fighting these fires has a cost, see this memorial. The last loss was a P-3 this April. USN P-3 should be with us through 2018 and some countries still fly the S-2 and P-2V, but I think all will be fighting fires for a few more decades.