European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 14, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday december 14, 1988 the stars and stripes Page 9 Sis Gui Blu Wulw. A sky Warrior alias the whale prepares for  naval station Holn in Spain. The Bulky Plant is Loo old to Lake the stress involved in Landing an carriers. Some May blubber when of whale goes  Mediterranean Bureau naval. Station Rota. Spain it s uncomfortable difficult to Fly a Nightmare to maintain and so old it no longer can take the stress of Carrier land Ings. Out Navy a is Iliin the ea-3b ii a whale of a plane. . It s tote sky Warrior. Buu with a Takeoff weight of 73.000 pounds making it the biggest and heaviest aircraft Ever to operate aboard aircraft carriers it s commonly called the  for aircraft handlers the Bulky plane is a constant headache be cause it takes up so much parking space on crowded aprons. The Navy plans to replace the whale one of the oldest planes in is inventory with he ks-3. A modified version of the Carrier based s-3 Viking submarine Hunter aircraft starting in 1991. Until then i must keep the venerable whales flying from land bases. Rota based Fleet air recon so 2 operates a variety of aircraft including a half dozen boobs to conduct electronic reconnaissance in support of Fleet operations. The aircraft obtain information on areas of naval and National interest. The Squadron also gathers technical information on weapons systems. Although the whale s actual equipment and capabilities arc classified the plane is reported to be crammed with state of the Art electronic warfare reconnaissance gear. A Squadron release says the Liale is unmatched in providing the timeliness variety Quality and Quantity of reconnaissance support to Fleet and National  cmdr. Craig Porterfield who has been flying one version or another of the a-3 since 1971, is one Pilot who will be sad to Sec the aircraft retired. It has done me Well the 4 Lycar old Santa Maria calif., resident said. It s reliable even though it s old. I m not looking Forward to the Day when they put it put to pasture 1 love the plane and i would love to Fly it  High Praise when you consider that a whale Pilot is confined to a hard uncomfortable scat for the entire Mission which typically lasts about five hours because the plane has Only a single set of flight controls Forter Field who has 3,500 hours of flying Lime 2,100 of them in the a-3 also has piloted the whale through 370 Carrier landings. Some 110 of them were at Nigil and he said he sweated through every one of them.,the Young Guys Don t realize to difficult it was to Fly the whale onto a Carrier Porter Field said. Designed in the 1940s, tested in the 1950s and employed As heavy bombers in the Estios some of today s a-3s were built before the seven member Crews who la them were bom. This one is older than me 27-year-old it.  said. The Navy accepted it in 1959." Hab Crichl. From at Cna mich., referred to a whale that sat parked on the apron at naval station Rola undergoing repairs at the hands of fitly officer2nd class Frank Duvall. Some of these planes already Are on display in aircraft museums Duvall said " arts arc. Extremely hard to come by so we have to improvise. Once we had 5o Rob a fuel probe from a whale on exhibit at the naval aviation museum at t a Nacola  liable operations. The age of the plane Means that Carrier landings Are extremely stressful Habermehl said. The restriction is to ensure that we Don t Wear them out before beget the new es-3s." although Duvall said the plane is extremely Reli whales Are now restricted from routine Carrier o. "  Sel Wollor Petty officer 2nd Cess Frunk Kavull checks the sky Warrior s cockpit. Cmdr Craig Porti if old right hits made 370 Carrier funding in the Plenc including 110 at night