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18-578: NNA may refer to: Kenitra Air Base , Morocco (IATA code) National News Agency , the official news agency of the Lebanese government National Newspaper Awards , for Canadian journalism National Newspaper Association , an American organization for community newspapers National Notary Association , an American organization for notaries public National numbering agency for International Securities Identifying Number A neural network accelerator ,

36-535: A specialised hardware computer system to speed up artificial intelligence or machine learning applications Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title NNA . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NNA&oldid=1194187275 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

54-481: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Kenitra Air Base Kenitra Air Base was previously known as Craw Field , named for Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Demas T. Craw , USAAF , who was killed while attempting to deliver a message from American General Lucian Truscott to the Vichy French Commander at Port Lyautey requesting that

72-577: The Glenn L. Martin Company . The Mercator was an unsuccessful contender for a United States Navy requirement for a long-range maritime patrol bomber, with the Lockheed P2V Neptune chosen instead. It saw a limited life as a long-range electronic reconnaissance aircraft. Its most unusual feature was that it was powered by a combination of piston engines and turbojets , the latter being in

90-502: The 3rd Air Force Base (3ieme BAFRA) has been the home of the military air cargo transport. The working horse for this has been and remains the C 130 Hercules by Lockheed. Also since 1982 a training wing for air force transport pilots was added, the training starts with King Air Beechcraft. P4M Mercator This is an accepted version of this page The Martin P4M Mercator was a maritime reconnaissance aircraft built by

108-769: The Atlantic Ocean and especially in the shallow waters of the Straits of Gibraltar where radar and magnetic anomaly detection were viable. Craw Field was the final destination of the six K-ships of USN Blimp Squadron ZP-14 (Blimpron 14, the Africa Squadron) that made the first transatlantic crossing of non-rigid airships in 1944. Following World War II, the airfield was expanded to a major US Naval Air Station in 1951 and renamed NAS Port Lyautey . In this capacity, it primarily supported land-based US naval reconnaissance aircraft monitoring Soviet naval operations in

126-744: The French surrender. Although imprisoned, Craw's interpreter, Major Pierpont Hamilton , negotiated the French surrender during Operation Torch and the airport was eventually secured for the Allied forces. Pierpont Hamilton also received the Medal of Honor for his actions. The air base at Port Lyautey served as a staging area for many Allied operations in North Africa and the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO) during World War II. For

144-500: The Minister of National Defense, Mohamed Oufkir , assisted by Mohamed Amekrane , commander of Kenitra. Four Northrop F-5 fighter jets from Kenitra attacked a Boeing 727 carrying King Hassan II of Morocco as he entered Moroccan airspace when returning from a visit to France. The passenger plane was riddled by cannon rounds, but was able to land safely at Rabat-Salé Airport . The king was unhurt. Savage reprisals were taken against

162-482: The coast (about 30 nmi or 56 km offshore) of Vietnam, China, North Korea and the eastern Soviet Union, and were of a highly secret nature; the aircraft sometimes masqueraded as regular P2V Neptunes in radio communications, and often flew with false serial numbers (Bureau Numbers) painted under the tail. Operational missions were always flown at night, during the dark with the moon when possible, and with no external running lights. The Mercators were replaced by

180-655: The eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. Aircraft operating from NAS Port Lyautey included the P4M Mercator in the 1950s, the P-2 Neptune in the 1950s and 1960s, and the P-3 Orion , EP-3 Aries and EA-3 Skywarrior in the 1960s and 1970s until the installation's closure as a USN facility and transfer to the Royal Moroccan Air Force in 1977. On 16 August 1972 a coup attempt was launched by

198-634: The first three months after capture the 21st Engineer Aviation Regiment worked on the airfield. In Feb. 1943 the Seabees of the 120th Naval Construction Battalion took over all construction activities. The United States Navy (USN) Fleet Air Wing 15 and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) 480th Antisubmarine Group were based there with specialized aircraft including PBY Catalinas , B-24 Liberators , and Goodyear-built K-ships (blimps) used to search for German U-boats in

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216-543: The participants in the failed coup attempt. In 2001, the airbase was depicted in the film Black Hawk Down , standing in for Mogadishu Airport in Somalia. The airport resides at an elevation of 16 feet (5 m) above mean sea level . It has two runways : 07/25 with a concrete surface measuring 2,437 by 46 metres (7,995 ft × 151 ft) and 03/21 with an asphalt surface measuring 1,839 by 46 metres (6,033 ft × 151 ft). Since its inception,

234-562: The rear of the engine nacelles. Work began on the Model 219 in 1944, as a replacement for the PB4Y Privateer long-range patrol bomber, optimised for long range minelaying missions, with the first flight being on 20 October 1946. A large and complicated aircraft, it was powered by two Pratt & Whitney R4360 Wasp Major 28-cylinder radial engines . To give a boost during takeoff and combat, two Allison J33 turbojets were fitted in

252-409: The rear of the two enlarged engine nacelles, the intakes being beneath and behind the radial engines. The jets, like those on most other piston/jet hybrids, burned gasoline instead of jet fuel which eliminated the need for separate fuel tanks. A tricycle undercarriage was fitted, with the nosewheel retracting forwards. The single-wheel main legs retracted into coverless fairings in the wings, so that

270-501: The short and deep bay popular in American bombers. This gave greater flexibility in payload, including long torpedoes, bombs, mines, depth charges or extended-range fuel tanks. The US Navy chose the smaller, simpler, cheaper and better performing P2V Neptune for the maritime patrol requirement, but nineteen aircraft were ordered in 1947 for high-speed minelaying purposes. The P4M entered service with Patrol Squadron 21 (VP-21) in 1950,

288-441: The sides of the wheels could be seen even when retracted. The wings themselves, unusually, had a different airfoil cross-section on the inner wings than the outer. Heavy defensive armament was fitted, with two 20 mm (.79 in) cannon in an Emerson nose turret and a Martin tail turret, and two 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns in a Martin dorsal turret. The bomb bay was, like British practice, long and shallow rather than

306-592: The squadron deploying to NAS Port Lyautey in French Morocco . It remained in use with VP-21 until February 1953. From 1951, the 18 surviving production P4Ms were modified for the electronic reconnaissance (or SIGINT , for signals intelligence ) mission as the P4M-1Q , to replace the PB4Y-2 Privateer . The crew was increased to 14 and later 16 to operate all the surveillance gear, and the aircraft

324-528: Was fitted with a large number of different antennae. Starting in October 1951, electronic surveillance missions were flown from U.S. Naval Station Sangley Point in the Philippines , later from Naval Air Station Iwakuni , Japan , and Naval Air Station Atsugi , Japan, by a secretive unit that eventually gained the designation Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One (VQ-1) . Long missions were flown along

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