Project Magnet (USN)
Additional magnetic data were collected with geophysical survey ships in conjunction with other projects for combination into final products.
The aircraft were notable for the international orange and white livery and the authorized use of cartoon characters, Roadrunner being one and the last used, on their fuselages.
The missions required use of civilian facilities, often in remote areas, where no military ones were available thus drawing attention in places where naval aircraft were not ordinarily seen.
[1][note 1] Project Magnet began in 1951 with a budget addition at the Hydrographic Office for airborne geomagnetic surveys to gather data supporting charting the Earth's magnetic field using a Naval Ordnance Laboratory Type 2 Vector Airborne Magnetometer, capable of measuring intensity and direction of the field, and a P2V Neptune.
The aircraft, named Pineapple Special, was assigned to the Airborne Early Warning Training Unit, predecessor of Oceanographic Development Squadron Eight (VXN-8), and underwent experimentation and modifications to eliminate local magnetic fields that would effect data collection.
[4] The introduction of the proton precession magnetometer enabled supplemental data collection from steel-hulled ships, making the extreme measures used for Carnegie unnecessary.
The magnetic information was used for safe surface and air navigation, special Navy requirements and general scientific research.
[17][18] The change in aircraft would cause loss of a year's air operations so a Lockheed Super Constellation variant designated NC121K was acquired for mapping the southern hemisphere.
[4] An indication of the globe spanning scope of flights is contained in an 11 November 1959 Department of Defense press release regarding the flight of the NC121K leaving the Naval Air Station Anacosta with a Hydrographic Office geophysical team for Mexico City, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Luanda, Mauritius, Singapore, Guam, Midway Island and San Francisco due to return to NAS Anacosta about 11 December.
In January 1961 a survey of Plantagenet Bank was flown by an NC-54R covering the feature with 0.5 nmi (0.58 mi; 0.93 km) east–west lines at 500 ft (152.4 m) altitude.
The survey produced "Contour charts of total magnetic intensity, inclination, declination, anomalous X, Y, and Z components of the earth's field" over the 52 sq nmi (178.4 km2) area.
[27] By the late 1980s the RP-3D Project Magnet aircraft, specially built using nonmagnetic materials aft of the main cabin door, was named Roadrunner and had the distinctive squadron livery of international orange and white.
[30] In addition to the published charts project data supported special Navy applications and the surveys were often covered by unclassified technical papers.
That survey and report were the basis for a paper in Deep Sea Research in 1966 titled "Magnetic Anomalies Over the Reykjanes Ridge" by J. R. Heirtzler, X.
[34] In an unusual example from 20 November 1961 to 13 March 1962 in the North Atlantic the three large geophysical survey ships Bowditch, Dutton and Michelson collected 17,200 nmi (19,800 mi; 31,900 km) in a simultaneous track keeping 10 nmi (12 mi; 19 km) spacing between ships by radar and using Loran-C and other precise navigational aids.
