NASA's Aviation Safety and Security Program will get a big boost today as its future icing flight research capabilities are increased by the arrival at NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, of an S-3 Viking, a former Navy aircraft.

With eight times the range of Glenn's current icing research aircraft, the S-3 will be modified by Glenn technicians to allow in-flight icing weather forecast and incorporate diagnostic tools. The aircraft is scheduled to begin performing research flights in November, 2006.

What We Do

S-3 Viking Online provides an online community, research, documents and data that enable people to build a deep and lasting understanding of the aircraft, the commands and historical events surrounding the Lockheed S-3 Viking. The veterans and their descendants, historians, academia and the general public want a easily accessible, historically correct representation of the Lockheed S-3 Viking and those who served in the various VS commands to be open and available to the general public.

Drupal Option

Drupal is the name of the software that powers Florida Panhandle Online. There are Drupal web sites all over the world, and many of them share their registration databases so that users may freely log in to any Drupal site using a single Drupal ID.

So please feel free to log in to your account here at Florida Panhandle Online with a username from another Drupal site. The format of a Drupal ID is similar to an e-mail address: username@server. An example of a valid Drupal ID is mwlily@drupal.org.

Yahoo Option

Enables user authentication via Yahoo! Browser-Based Authentication. Login now by clicking here: yahoo_bbauth login.

The S-3 Viking is an all-weather, carrier-based jet aircraft, providing protection against hostile surface combatants while also functioning as the Carrier Battle Groups' primary overhead/mission tanker. Extremely versatile, the aircraft is equipped for many missions, including day/night surveillance, electronic countermeasures, command/control/communications warfare, and search and rescue.

Conceived primarily for ASW, the Viking has proven itself so versatile that its current mission is called simply "Sea Control." It does so many things so well. Surface and undersea warfare, mine warfare, electronics recon and analysis, over-the-horizon targeting, missile attack, even aerial tanking. Airwing commanders (notoriously stingy about deck space) insist upon it, in fact, make extra room for it. Carrier captains like it, too, because it can launch and recover downwind and can stay up for hours. Pampering is not required.