Lockheed AP-3C Orion

The Lockheed AP-3C Orion is a variant of the P-3 Orion formerly used by the Royal Australian Air Force for naval fleet support, maritime surveillance, search and survivor supply, and anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare. The eighteen AP-3C aircraft were upgraded from P-3C aircraft between 1997 and 2005, and the program took three years longer than expected because of systems integration problems. No off-the-shelf package of upgrades met the RAAF requirement when the project was developed in 1996, and work on the first aircraft began in January 1997. The first two were handed over in December 2001 and the last was delivered in early 2005. All eighteen served with No. 92 Wing at RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia on operations in Australia, South East Asia and the Middle East. They were retired in 2019 after the Boeing P-8 Poseidon arrived, and the two AP-3C(EW) electronic intelligence aircraft retired in December 2023.