Duke Hawkins: Lockheed S-3 Viking

The Lockheed S-3 Viking was a U.S. Navy airborne multirole aircraft primarily designed as an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) fighter for operation from aircraft carriers. It was developed in the 1970s as a replacement for the piston-powered Grumman S-2 Tracker and entered service in 1974. The crew consisted of four aircrew - pilot, co-pilot/COTAC, tactical coordinator (TACCO) and sensor operator (SENSO) - and the aircraft was built from the outset for long patrol flights over the ocean with extensive submarine detection equipment, including sonobuoys, magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) and sophisticated avionics. The distinctive high-pitched sound of the General Electric TF34's turbofan engines earned it the nickname "Hoover" among its crews, after the brand of vacuum cleaners. Over the course of his career, the Viking adapted to other roles - reconnaissance, aerial refueling, strikes against surface targets - and served in the U.S. Navy until 2009 (even longer for the VX-30, until 2016).

Duke Hawkins: Lockheed S-3 Viking is the 44th volume of HMH Publications' popular model and reference series. At 148 pages, it provides extensive pictorial documentation of the aircraft, designed specifically with the needs of modelers and detailers in mind. In addition to action shots depicting the S-3 in service aboard aircraft carriers, inside you'll find detailed photographs of the cockpit, fuselage, wing folding mechanism, landing gear wells, avionics bay, and folding vertical tailplane - all key areas that are usually the hardest to find in conventional sources when building a model. The Duke Hawkins series is known for its focus on visual material with a minimum of text, and this book fully adheres to that approach.

For modelers working on S-3 Viking kits in a variety of scales, the book is a virtually indispensable resource for detailing the cockpit, fitting armament to pylons, dealing with the scuffs and operational contamination typical of airborne aircraft, and choosing specific colors and unit markings. It will serve collectors and fans of U.S. naval aviation equally well as a representative pictorial monograph of one of the iconic types of the Cold War era.