Avro-Grumman P-45 Charlton

[McColm]

Avro tried to market the Shackleton alongside the Lockheed Neptune, it's selling point being the large weapons bay hoping that customers would buy significant numbers but only the South African Air Force bought the MR.3.
Avro approached SJMcColm Engineering Ltd Design Department to come up with something that would appeal to the American markets. The first noticeable feature was to relocate the radome housing the AN/APS-20 radar under the nose, replacing the four Rolls-Royce Griffon engines with those from the North American B-45 as well as the main landing gear. A new 'airliner wrap-around ' windscreen and a Magnetic Anomaly Detector fitted to the rear with a pair of directional tall wheels, sonorbouy launchers and ESM pods fitted to the wingtips. The interior layout remained mostly the same as the Avro Shackletonn MR.3 upto eight underwing pylons could be used, plumbing for a in-flight refuelling probe in the nose with a bolt-on probe carried beneath the flight engineer's seat.
The USNAVY ordered 9 of the new styled Shackletons and a licence was awarded to Grumman for the conversion work, the nonessential parts shipped back to Avro,  the new designation being the Avro-Grumman P-45 Charlton. Flight trials got the USARMY and USAF interested. The Army wanted to use it as a  support aircraft and reconnaissance whereas the USAF sort a ground attack, the Royal Air Force managed to secure the rights to a in-flight refuelling tanker with two hose & drogue tanks under the wings and one in the weapons bay plumbed into the long-range fuel tanks. Rubber inflatable fuel tanks were fitted aft of the wing spurs with the galley moved forward, the M.A.D. boom removed and a rear facing CCTV camera installed.
As the Vietnam War started the Avro-Grumman P-45 Charltons would see service with numbers totalling 60 including replacement aircraft taken from the RAF as soon as the HS Nimrod MR.1 became serviceable in the maritime surveillance role.
Updates included new engines and infrared FLIR pod for the USARMY and the USNAVY, the USAF returned their Charltons' back to the RAF who reinstated them in the newly formed 8 Squadron for Airborne Early Warning known as the Charlton AEW.5 and Charlton K.6s. Coastal Command 18 Group formed a Squadron to oversee the fishing fleet and oil & gas rigs known as TAPESTRY flights.
Towards the end of the 1970s the Bell Boeing Aircraft Company bought the remaining serviceable aircraft from the USA military to be used as trials aircraft, two aircraft loaned to Lockheed as part of the S-3A Viking programme, to which they bought 7. Successful flight trials on the USS Nimitz lead to speculation of the Charlton being chosen to replace the Grumman Tracker although promoting this as an alternative to the P-3 Orion for the third world countries or countries with a tight budget.
The last of the American built Charltons was retired in November 1980. Whilst the British version kept flying in well past the induction of the Boeing E-3D Sentry. Reduced to Coastal surveillance with airframe flying hours dwindling due to the corrosion of the salt air the last Charlton AEW.5 was wheeled away into the SJMc Hall of Fame for public display in the Bell Boeing livery aircraft number:163911. Back in May 2000.

[Tophe]

Impressive!