Mercator P4M-1

Lovely shot, shame to think that it was taken after type retirement but none made it into preservation.
Must be one of very few Western types to have been designed with piston and jet power to have made it into production, I can only think of the Ryan FR-1 Fireball and North American AJ-1 Savage.

Here’s a pretty detailed shot of a VQ-1 bird, taken early sixties, after retirement,there exact work was electronic countermeasures.
They certainly bristled with antenna etc

The Mercators of VQ-2 operated weekly missions up to the Baltic, and the limit of Soviet airspace from Blackbushe. They operated from 54-59,more during the earlier period, they were quite rare after 57. They carried several specialistes who recorded various soviet radar wavelengths and monitored communications. It was quite normal to carry a Russian speaker. The USN also operated their WV-2 and WV-3 on similar missions over the artic, these also regually transited Blackbushe.

The U-2 and other high altitude jets were primarily Photo-reconnaissance weren’t they and the Mercator and other lower level types were interested in monitoring Radio comms and probing Radar emissions?

If you can get your hands on one of the old “Wings Of Fame” series (excellent stuff generally) Volume 19 had a really good write up on the Mercator. I had never even heard of the thing until I read it. Well worth hunting out of you can (that said, evilbay just had one for for £48 or so !….):eek:

I hope I didn’t sound too flippant earlier, but probably the strongest parallel one can draw about the Mercator and the U-2 is that they both served predominantly in the roles of intelligence gathering, even though the former was converted for the task.

The U-2 seems to stem from higher speed and high altitude types such as the B-45, Canberra and RB-47, after proving to be prone to ground based missiles, which wasn’t thought likely originally, the role was effectively taken over by satellites.

The Mercator sits firmly in the large and slow intel gathering types category, usually based on converted bombers and airliners which easily housed lots of electronic equipment and operators, such as RB-29/50s, Privateers, EC-121s, EC/RC-135s, Skywarriors, C-130 variants, Comets and Nimrod R.1s.

It is a fascinating subject and well worth reading more about, some of the losses deserve to be remembered more.

The USAF RB-47’s operated all over to Soviet Union above the ceiling of the MIG-15’s then the MIG-17 arrived which could reach them. Lots on the web about these overflights during which some aircraft were lost.

Richard

Fascinating replies, my thanks to you all

I did not mean the forerunner of the U2 literally, but in its field of work.

Possibly, but then there was other Ferreters and Signals aircraft around before that, I would think the USAF RB-29s/50s, B-45s, C-121s were more in line to progression to the U-2, but even then with their fuselages filled with kit and operators it was a different way of doing the task.

I think the capability of the British Canberra possibly changed more than most the outlook on fast high-level, recce and ELINT work that led to the U-2 style operations.

Here’s a nice publicity shot of one.

Longshot, I remember seeing one at Blackbushe in about 1960, but was too knackered from cycling there from Hayes, to cycle round to the USN side to spot it. I think in those days, if it wasn’t in Civil Aircraft Markings, it wasn’t worth looking at! 😮

I did not mean the forerunner of the U2 literally, but in its field of work.

P4M Mercator

The P4M was originally running against the P2V Neptune and obviously lost however the USN saw a lot of merit in the design and ordered a few as ELINT aircraft.

IIRC some were lost in tangles with Soviet aircraft.

Some more pictures
http://http://kevsaviationpics.blogspot.com.au/search/label/P4M

Not my field but with 15 crew presumably an (armed) airborne listening/watching station….crew grades on photo AO(2) Aviation Ordnanceman, AL(3) Aviation Electronicsman….Mercators used to visit Blackbushe in the 50s

I wouldn’t call the Mercator a forerunner of the U-2 but it was used for ELINT work by the USN as well as the PBY4-2 Privateer and P2V-7 Neptune.
The USAF were using the B-45 for ELINT (inc from UK) before the U-2 era, though various unlikely types have also been used such as the C-130.
the aircraft and crew losses of the ELINT work in the early cold-war period can be quite surprising