I could only imagine the stresses of flying a large recip engine prop plane off a carrier. I understand they JATO assisted most if not all gross fuel P2V takeoffs?. I know it was a long-legged but heavy plane at gross fuel.
The P2 was the Navy's only ticket into the nuclear war business before the Polaris missile and the Neptune was pressed into service as a one way ticket nuclear bomber before we had the smaller generation of weapons. With two recips, two jets and JATO it could make it off the carriers but it couldn't come back so was expected to drop it's bomb and then go ashore someplace.
That mission for the Neptune was replaced when the North American AJ Savage came along. The Savage fullfilled the mission but likely makes the top 5 list of worst planes in Naval Air history with it's habits of massive fuel leaks (and subsequent explosions since it used Avgas for both it's engines and the jet in the belly) and with the engines commonly twisting off upon a carrier trap.
The Truculent Turtle (
http://www.vpnavy.com/turtle_01.html) held the record for longest unrefueled flight in a piston powered plane until the Yeagers broke it in the Voyager. The Turtle left Perth
15 tons over gross weight and arrived in NAS Columbus OH 11,236 miles and 55 hours and 18 minutes later.
