Finally the In Action series gets to the S-3 Viking, an aircraft that your editor spent over half his military career working on and around. As such, it is difficult not to be hyper-critical when reading the book. Fortunately, I found almost no glitches aside from a few that are minimal at best. Such as captioning a photo of the Bicentennial VS-41 plane as being with Sea Control Squadron 41 when that title was not given to VS units until after the end of the cold war when the fleet pretty well shed its ship-board ASW role.

As some may know, the S-3 was the first to integrate all of the various systems of the aircraft through a digital computer. Of course, this computer was a mere 64K of memory, even in the later versions and took up a huge amount of space in the left interior avionics bay. But it was able to integrate everything from radios, to sensors, to weapons deployment onto one display. Nowadays, similar workloads and a lot more are capable of being done by a mobile phone. Built to replace the S-2, the Viking served until the mid-2000s serving as little more than a tanker during the last decade or so of its life, though it was still capable of an offensive mission, albeit not against submarines. The ASW equipment was still there, but mostly for weights and balances.

Sadly, there was no replacement as it was felt that the dwindling P-3 Orion fleet would suffice against a threat that was no longer anticipated and outside that range, helicopters such as the SH-60 would suffice.

In this book by Brad Elward, we get a look at the initial development of the design of the S-3, followed by the preproduction planes (which, by the way, were just about all transformed into US-3A COD aircraft), and into squadron service. The aircraft's systems are all gone into, festooned with the jargon that is so beloved by modern military types. Proposed variants, like the KA-3 and later ES-3 aircraft are also covered as well as the upgrade to S-3B which improved electronics and weapons systems.

Through all of this are a myriad of nicely done photographs, most of them in color. A goodly number of profiles are also presented, making for a well rounded look at this important, but now gone sub hunter. I should point out that at least three are still flying. Two with VX-30 and one with NASA, so they are not totally gone from the skies. It makes for a book that I enjoyed reading as much for nostalgia as anything, and one I can highly recommend to you.

November 2012

My thanks to Squadron Products for the review copy. Get yours today at your favorite shop or on-line retailer.

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