Mercator night mission

[Nils]

My newest work, depicting a Martin P4M Mercator beeing attacked by a couple of North Korean migs, on a secret night mission into communist controlled North Korea, sometime in the early years of the Cold War era before electronic warfare.

Not many of the planes were operative and very few even knew about their existence. Several of them were lost on secret missions like this into 'enemy territory'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bobsyouruncle]

Fascinating subject. The odds looked stacked against him on this one. Nice work again, Nils.

Cheers Bob.

[Nils]

Thanks Bob. The Mercator is even today not a commonly known plane, there were something like 12 planes operative of the type. It started life as a competitor project to a new type of Naval patrol plane, replacing the by then outdated Privateers. But the contract was lost to Lockheed with their Neptune program. However some clever heads found use for it as a secret project, collecting information about the 'other side'.

Both the Neptune and the Mercators had a mixed jet/propellers propulsion, which wasn't uncommon for the period. Several othe planes had similar solutuions. The Neptune's jets were slung underwing in separate nacelles, as for the Mercators they were buried in the rear of the main engine nacelles.

One Mercator crashed down into a suburban street in California, killing several civillians. Not god for keeping it a secret project.. I think in it's heyday, they normally were stationed far away bases, like Japan, Alaska, Cyprus  and such. far from home but closer to it's work areas As I said earlier, several were lost/missing in action but I do not think much of it ever came out in public.

Edited September 21, 2017 by Nils