Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), the arcane art of hunting an unseen underwater enemy, has driven advances in many fields from sonar to signal processing, torpedoes to oceanography.

Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPAs) have often been derived from airliners, such as the P-3 Orion and Il-38 ‘May’, but converted bombers such as the Lancaster fulfilled the long-range MPA role in the immediate post-war years. These were followed by carrier-based aircraft such as the Alizé, Gannett and Tracker, flying boats and amphibians from the Consolidated Catalina to the Shin Meiwa US-2 and long-range landplanes from the Tu-142 ‘Bear’ to the BAe Nimrod.

Today ASW is as much, if not more, about the sensor suite and its crew interface than it is the aircraft itself. Companies including Saab and Boeing have integrated their own systems into other manufacturers’ airframes. MPAs also undertake diverse missions such as anti-surface warfare, intelligence gathering, fisheries patrol, search and rescue and disaster relief support, making them some of the most versatile platforms in today’s air arms.

Sub-Hunters and Maritime Patrol Aircraft Since 1945, No 78 in the Aviation Archive series, looks at all these roles and the wide range of aircraft that have carried them out.