One of the great Naval aircraft of all time, very versatile, performed maratime surveillance & reccon, tanker missions, it was a great submarine hunter. I have 7 traps and cats in the S-3 and another 30 in the C-2 Cod as a civilian from when I worked for AIRPAC; not as a pilot but as a passenger. The S-3 was also jokingly referred to as the Hoover; when playing golf at the course on base at North Island many a time an S-3 would take off (there was a runway right next to a couple of the holes, can’t remember which) and when the engines spooled up it sounded like a loud Hoover vaccuum cleaner. It was just an all-around great workhorse aircraft for the US Navy.
Left out of the article was much mention of the S-3B. The S-3B could maximize the capabilities of the Harpoon anti-ship missile. We planned for a potential swarm attack on Soviet task groups 500+ miles away. The A-6 and A-7 couldn’t reach out that far, nor could the A-6 put the Harpoon to best use.
I’ve heard them standing on the beach north of the Del Coronado hotel. One of my
students at Southwestern College was an S3 pilot.