Author: Bob O’Connor, Crew 8, ’63-‘66
Scanning the news online early one morning last October I came across the following headline: “Big Horn County Is Selling 16 Vintage Aircraft in Online Auction and Bids Start At $25.” * Somebody clearing out a boneyard, I thought – so what’s available for twenty five bucks?
Sure enough, a photo of an airplane graveyard came up when I clicked on it, but wait! Mixed in among various ‘50s-era USAF birds was a P-2V, its serial number clearly painted on the tail: BuNo 148355. That sounded familiar, so I checked with an old squadron friend, Gary Phillips, who confirmed that it was the Exec’s airplane, LH-7, which he’d flown as CDR Johnson’s Backup PPC in Brunswick and during our ’65-’66 split deployment to Keflavik. It later became LH-1 when CDR Johnson took over the squadron late in 1966. (In mid-December 1965, during that deployment, Crew Eight also flew LH-7, on a patrol to Andoya, overnighting in Bodø.)
Airmail Seven/One in VP-21 livery.
So, how did a worthy steed like LH-7/1 end up in a boneyard?
SP-2H BuNo 148355 was built by Lockheed at Burbank, CA and accepted by the Navy on 28 July 1961. It was assigned to VP-21 at NAS Brunswick from August 1961 to October 1968, where it served as LH-7, and then, LH-1. After the squadron, it served with Reserve units until May 1977, when it was retired to the Arizona desert. A year later, it was sold to Hawkins & Powers (H&P), who had a solid business in Wyoming tanking ex-military aircraft and flying them on wildfires.
The idea of using aircraft for fighting forest fires was an outgrowth of crop-dusting, which began in the 1920s but grew quickly after WWII when surplus aircraft became available. One drawback that restricted use of larger aircraft was that they had no way to jettison their loads in emergencies. But when H&P developed a tank with gates that could dump either full or partial loads, and got Forest Service approval for it, the airtanker industry was off and running.
Very soon it became apparent that P-2s were a perfect fit for the role: they had a proven track record of flight and maintenance performance, bomb bays spacious enough to carry 2,000 gallons of retardant, auxiliary jet engines to enable heavily loaded takeoffs at the high elevations in western states where wildfires most often raged. Also, large numbers of them were becoming available relatively cheaply when the Navy began phasing them out of service during the late seventies. By 2000, H&P led the field, with 200 employees in Greybull, WY, ‘tanking’ ex-military aircraft and flying them under government contracts.
Then in 2004, two of H&P’s aircraft (not P-2s) suffered catastrophic structural failures, killing five crewmembers. Shortly thereafter the company was stripped of its government contracts, and two years later they were out of business. Apparently, after buying LH-7/1 in 1978, H&P never got around to “tanking” it, because in the photo (below) it’s without tip tanks but otherwise seems intact, still in white and light gray paint, and markings from its last duty station, NAS Memphis.
Former LH-7/1 at auction (2025)
Sad to say, our old bird has been sitting in H&P’s boneyard now for forty-seven years – ever since the day it was delivered – surrounded by a number of other abandoned hulks, at South Bighorn County Airport, just outside Greybull, WY.
When the recent auction closed, twelve of the seventeen aircraft offered had been sold, but not LH-7/1. It received a few bids, but none met the reserve price, so it will probably just continue to sit for now. County officials say deals are a function of timing and price, and they’ll try again later.
To recap: during its time in the squadron, LH-7/1 proudly sat on the ramp side by side with other spade-tails. But today, our former Skipper’s aircraft lies derelict in Wyoming, while its sister ship, LH-8, sits in sunny southern California, where friendly hands are planning to re-convert it from an airtanker back to an SP-2H. That’s really surreal – or maybe just the luck of the draw . . . .
So, what’s the back story on Airmail Eight?
SP-2H BuNo 145906 was built by Lockheed in Burbank, CA and accepted by the Navy in December 1958. It served in VP-23 Brunswick, Jan 1959-Mar 1960; VP-11 Brunswick, Mar 1960-Jan 1963; was overhauled at NARF Norfolk Jan 1963-Apr 1963; back to VP-23 Brunswick, Apr 1963-Sep 1963; then to VP-21 Brunswick Sep 1963-Sep 1968, as LH-8. After the squadron, it spent seven years with the Reserves before retirement in 1975 to Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona.
LH-8 on deployment in Keflavik, Iceland, 1965
It then sat in the desert at Davis-Monthan for fourteen years before being bought by “an emerging warbird museum in Georgia,” who sold it to H&P. (Records aren’t clear, but that first buyer may have been the Georgia Chapter of the Commemorative Air Force.) H&P converted and operated it as Tanker 139 for seven years, then sold it in 1996 to Neptune Aviation Services, of Missoula, MT, who flew it as Tanker 43 for another two decades.
Former LH-8 at work in its second career as Tanker 43
After learning about LH-8’s second career, we invited Neptune to our 2015 Squadron Reunion in Pensacola, where we learned about the company’s operations and the need to phase out their P-2s, which were nearing structural fatigue limits anyway, and replace them with jets. When they did that in 2017, Neptune – to mark the end of their long and productive era – donated several P-2s to firebases and museums near areas they’d protected. To complete that plan, in October 2018, our sixty-year-old bird made its final flight, from Alamogordo, NM to El Cajon, CA, where it entered the permanent collection of the San Diego Air & Space Museum.
Former Airmail Eight as Neptune Aviation’s Tanker 43 (c. 2016)
It’s currently sitting outside on the ramp at the Museum’s Annex at Gillespie Field, where they do the restorations, twelve miles east of downtown San Diego. Initially, their long range plan was to return it to SP-2H configuration, but funding shortages, combined with its spiffy look, which doesn’t require any work (photo above), plus the draw from its adventurous life as an air tanker (whose grandkids haven’t seen the animated Planes: Fire & Rescue?) may stretch that out a bit.
Clearly, how those two birds ended up where they did was just pure chance. Hawkins &Powers, forced out of business, had to abandon its unused inventory. Neptune Aviation Services, realizing that the era of converting military birds to airtankers was ending, and maybe wanting to salute the role the retired P-2s they’d built their business around had played in it, offered some to museums. (Of over a thousand Neptunes built, including 212 SP-2Hs delivered to the U.S. Navy, hundreds may still be sitting in the Arizona desert and other boneyards, but only around two dozen – including Tanker 43/Airmail 8 – are currently displayed in museums around the country.)
That said, let’s raise a glass to LH-7, LH-8, and all the P-2s who ever carried the Airmail call sign; to the aircrews who flew in them, and to the ground crews who maintained them. They were awesome rides and always brought us home safely. For that we are eternally grateful. Sláinte!
* * *
Today, Airmail Seven/One, with its odd NAS Memphis Reserve tail markings, still graces the Greybull boneyard, should you be planning a trip to Wyoming and care to stop by. Or if you’re lucky enough to find yourself out in San Diego one day with time to spare, you can actually visit Airmail Eight, cleverly disguised as Tanker 43, at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, Wednesdays thru Saturdays, 9am to 4pm. We’ve been advised that a call (619-258-1221) explaining your connections to VP-21 may get you a pass to climb back up inside. Your grandkids will approve.
-Bob O’Connor, Crew 8, ’63-‘66