Cardude - they're old enough (around 40 years) that they still carry a Flight Engineer to "run" the mechanicals. That center seat is a dedicated crew position. I imagine it's a struggle to maintain the required flight profile with wild wind variance thay must encounter.
There is virtually nothing "automatic" on those birds. I never saw a Navy P3 that wasn't hand flown throughout - the autopilot (so the crews told me) almost never worked and if it was "up" nobody trusted it.
Not a Navy aviator - just a frequent hitchhiker with VP-94.
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