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Description
Early in the Cold War, the mixed-power (propellers and jet engines) Martin P4M Mercator was demonstrated to the U.S. Navy as a possible long-range maritime patrol bomber, though the Navy chose the Lockheed P2V Neptune and the Mercator was converted to the P4M-1Q electronic reconnaissance plane, which replaced the World War II-era Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer. For their secret missions, the Mercators were usually flown at night with their lights off, and tended to use the numbers and radio callsigns of Neptunes to masquerade as regular maritime patrol planes. By 1960, the Mercators had been replaced by carrier-based Douglas A3D-1Q/2Q Skywarriors and land-based Lockheed WV-2Q Warning Stars and were all scrapped by the Navy, perhaps to protect the secrecy of their surveillance equipment. This model of P4M-1Q No. 12220T, probably assigned to the "World Watchers" of fleet aerial reconnaissance squadron VQ-1, is displayed at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum in Maryland.

Description
Early in the Cold War, the mixed-power (propellers and jet engines) Martin P4M Mercator was demonstrated to the U.S. Navy as a possible long-range maritime patrol bomber, though the Navy chose the Lockheed P2V Neptune and the Mercator was converted to the P4M-1Q electronic reconnaissance plane, which replaced the World War II-era Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer. For their secret missions, the Mercators were usually flown at night with their lights off, and tended to use the numbers and radio callsigns of Neptunes to masquerade as regular maritime patrol planes. By 1960, the Mercators had been replaced by carrier-based Douglas A3D-1Q/2Q Skywarriors and land-based Lockheed WV-2Q Warning Stars and were all scrapped by the Navy, perhaps to protect the secrecy of their surveillance equipment. This model of P4M-1Q No. 12220T, probably assigned to the "World Watchers" of fleet aerial reconnaissance squadron VQ-1, is displayed at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum in Maryland.