This View shows the P3 Armed and reaady to attack
This Group is a subset of the California Air National Guard 313th Tactical Fighter Wing
They Operate two types of airplanes more commonly associated with the U.S. Navy. In both cases, these Airplanes were rescued from the Navy's cast-off pile.
P3-Orion[]
This is a 4 engined, turboprop driven airplane that carries a crew of up to 12 people.
These airplanes were specialized to search out enemy submarines and attack them. These planes have a very long range. The electronics carried by the vehicle to search for Submarines can be altered, or swapped out for models more useful for science, or intelligence work.
Because these planes have a very long range, they are good for search vast areas of ocean, in the case of rescuing lost mariners, or loitering in an area for a long time looking for air borne smugglers. The Planes used by the 323 squadron were removed from the United States Navy, which considered them superflous, and old. The C-ANG hired Lockeed Martine to rebuild the airplanes, with the help of money from Homeland Security.
Because the vehicle is relatively large and slow - although they can carry a respectable load of bombs and missiles, they are too vulnerable to anti-aircraft weapons and so P3s are not used as attack aircraft except under very unusual conditions.
E-2 Hawkeye[]
The E-2 Hawkeye is a medium sized airplane, driven by two turboprop engines. The same Allison turbo-prop engine is used on the E-2, the C-2, the P-3 and the C-130, as well as variants of those types of airplanes - making the various planes used by the 313 group easier to maintain and run.
The E-2 Hawkeye has a smaller crew then than the P-3 Orion. It is marked by a distinctive flying saucer type of "radome" mounted over the main wing spar.