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| Keywords: EP-3B Orion of VQ-1 c1970.jpg A U S Navy Lockheed EP-3B Orion BuNo 149678 of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron VQ-1 circa in 1970 <br>149678 had been delivered as a P-3A to Patrol Squadron VP-44 on 29 October 1962 In May 1963 3 P-3As BuNo 149669 149673 149678 were obtained by the CIA from the U S Navy under Project STSPIN as replacement aircraft for CIA's own covert operation fleet of Lockheed RB-69A Neptunes Converted by Aerosystems Division of LTV at Greenville Texas the 3 P-3As were simply known as black P-3A under Project Axial Officially transferred from the USN to the CIA in June-July 1964 LTV Aerosystems converted the 3 aircraft to be both ELINT and COMINT platforms The first of the 3 black P-3As arrived in Taiwan and was officially transferred to the ROCAF's top secret Black Bat Squadron on 22 June 1966 Armed with 4 AIM-9B Sidewinder missiles for self-defence the 3 black P-3As flew peripheral missions along the PR China coast to collect SIGINT and air samples When the project was terminated in January 1967 all 3 black P-3As were flown to NAS Alameda for long term storage 2 of the 3 aircraft 149669 and 149678 were converted into the only 2 EP-3B versions in existence by Lockheed at Burbank in September 1967 while the third aircraft 149673 was converted by Lockheed in 1969-1970 to serve as a development aircraft for various electronic programs The 2 EP-3Bs were known as Bat Rack owing to their short period of service with Taiwan's Black Bat Squadron were issued to US Navy's VQ-1 Squadron in 1969 and deployed to Da Nang Vietnam Later the 2 aircraft were converted to EP-3E ARIES along with 10 EP-3As 149678 was finally retired on 10 January 1987 http //collections naval aviation museum/emuwebdoncoms/pages/doncoms/AdvQuery php U S Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No http //collections naval aviation museum/emuwebdoncoms/pages/doncoms/Display php irn 47070 QueryPage 2Femuwebdoncoms 2Fpages 2Fdoncoms 2FAdvQuery php 2011 023 113 ca 1970 U S Navy PD-USGov-Military-Navy EP-3 Orion Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 1 United States Navy | ||||
