a3d

Monochrome archival image of RA-3B Skywarrior Full Navy Bureau serial number 142666 on lower tail. Tail code SS of VAP-61 with Modex nose code 917. Airframe protectively sealed with access panels, side windows, cockpit canopy, engine intakes and exhausts covered over. All camera ports on lower fuselage sides and underside were also covered. Legibility of markings appears to indicate original photo was taken not long after aircraft was placed in open air desert storage By contrast of sky a colored filter may have been used over lens. This web page records RA-3B 142666 still in AMARC storage by 2001: home.clara.net/mwindridge/Database/20May01/area_181.htm RA-3B Bu No 142666 first arrived into storage 6 Oct 1969. Its full MSDC/AMAC/AMARG storage code was AN2A0040. Its original location was 181106. This was Area 18, Row 11, position 06. This website reveals the fate of RA-3B 142666: www.a3skywarrior.com/PDFs/A-3_Storage_List_2008.pdf Scrapped in 2002.

This web page has a picture of RA-3B 142666: www.gonavy.jp/bbs1/index.cgi?page:150=v (Use slider to scroll down nearly all the way to view) RA-3B 142666/SS-917, VAP-61, 19 March 1969. NAS Atsugi, Japan. VAP-61 was based at NAS Agana, Guam at this time.

Douglas A3D Skywarrior (later designated Douglas A-3 Skywarrior).

This is the A3D-1 130353 still in Navy blue. It was accepted by the Navy in November 1953 and sent to Edwards. By 1956 most of the Navy blue was gone. Stig

I have a framed copy of this photo. It was recently found in a collection of photo's belonging to a (recently died) New Zealand veteran - who fought in the Vietnam/Korea wars