page_title: Lockheed P-2 Neptune
section_title: "The Truculent Turtle"
hierarchical_section_title: Lockheed P-2 Neptune / Operational history / "The Truculent Turtle"
caption_attribution_description: The third Lockheed P2V-1 Neptune (BuNo. 89082), named the "TRUCULENT TURTLE", was stripped down, fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks plus an extended nose, and set an unrefueled long distance flight record 1946. The aircraft took off from Perth (Australia) on 29 Sep 1946 and landed in Columbus (Ohio, USA) on 1 Oct 1946 . It flew with a crew of four U.S. Navy officers and a young kangaroo, covering 18,089.3 kilometers (11,235.6 miles) in 55 hours 18 minutes.
context_page_description: The Lockheed P-2 Neptune was a maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare aircraft. It was developed for the US Navy by Lockheed to replace the Lockheed PV-1 Ventura and PV-2 Harpoon, and was replaced in turn by the Lockheed P-3 Orion. Designed as a land-based aircraft, the Neptune never made a carrier landing, but a small number were converted and deployed as carrier-launched, stop-gap nuclear bombers that would have to land on shore or ditch. The type was successful in export, and saw service with several armed forces.
context_section_description: The third production P2V-1 was chosen for a record-setting mission, ostensibly to test crew endurance and long-range navigation but also for publicity purposes: to display the capabilities of the US Navy's latest patrol bomber. Its nickname was The Turtle, which was painted on the aircraft's nose (along with a cartoon of a turtle smoking a pipe pedaling a device attached to a propeller). However, in press releases immediately before the flight, the US Navy referred to it as "The Truculent Turtle".
  Loaded with fuel in extra tanks fitted in practically every spare space in the aircraft, "The Turtle" set out from Perth, Australia to the United States. With a crew of four (and a nine-month-old gray kangaroo, a gift from Australia for the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.) the aircraft set off on 9 September 1946, with a RATO (rocket-assisted takeoff). 2 1/2 days (55h, 18m) later, "The Turtle" touched down in Columbus, Ohio, 11,236.6 miles (18,083.6 kilometres) from its starting point. It was the longest un-refueled flight made to that point beating the unofficial record held by the Japanese who had made a 10,212 miles (16,435 kilometres) flight in a Tachikawa Ki-77. This would stand as the absolute unrefueled distance record until 1962 (beaten by a USAF Boeing B-52 Stratofortress), and would remain as a piston-engined record until 1986 when Dick Rutan's Voyager would break it in the process of circumnavigating the globe. "The Turtle" is preserved at the National Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola.
caption: P2V-1 "The Turtle" in 1946
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