What is a Viking SENSO?
The declassified version
What is a Viking SENSO?
I asked ChatGPT to help me answer that question:
Query: Create a detailed overview of the role, duties and missions of the average S-3 Viking Sensor Operator. Describe the history, missions, requirements and other interesting facts and figures about the Viking SENSO’s role in Naval Aviation.
ChatGPT said:
Absolutely, Here’s a full Substack-style article draft titled “What is a Viking SENSO?”
You can easily customize with your personal anecdotes, but this version aims for a compelling, historically rich, and public-ready piece to educate and honor the legacy.
What is a Viking SENSO?
By Dana “Hardball” Harbaugh
Former Tailhook Viking SENSO, VS-38 Fighting Red Griffins
Note: I wanted a second opinion with proper open-source references, so I asked ChatGPT.
She (ChatGPT) also created this cool action figure just for fun. As well, I couldn’t resist adding a few choice comments of my own.
Introduction
If you’ve never heard the term Viking SENSO, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Even among Navy veterans, the job of a Viking Sensor Operator is a mystery. But from the late 1970s through the 1990s, SENSOs were the unsung sentinels of carrier-based anti-submarine warfare (ASW), helping secure sea lanes and hunt down enemy submarines at the height of the Cold War—and beyond.
This article offers a deep dive into the role, responsibilities, and operational history of Viking SENSOs (Sensor Operators) who flew aboard the Lockheed S-3A and S-3B Viking aircraft. It’s about time their legacy was told.
Viking Origins: The S-3A Viking
The S-3 Viking was the U.S. Navy’s primary carrier-based ASW platform from the early 1970s until its retirement in 2009.
From this angle, you can see the SENSO’s window just to the right of the big “702” lettering. Unless you were really tall, from the backseat you could see nothing out the front window except for sky, because the dashboard was so huge. (Unless we were doing aileron rolls or carrier breaks). I have many hours in that very aircraft.
Designed by Lockheed, the Viking replaced the aging S-2 Tracker and brought the Navy’s ASW capabilities into the jet age. The Viking's four-person crew included:
Pilot (Commissioned Officer)
Co-Pilot/Tactical Coordinator “Cotac/TACCO” (Commissioned Officer)
Sensor Operator “SENSO” (Enlisted)
SENSOs were always enlisted—highly trained specialists often with advanced test scores, top-secret clearances, and a willingness to operate in high-risk environments. In other words, the quiet professionals in the back of the aircraft doing the dirty work while keeping an entire Carrier Battle Group safe.
What Did a Viking SENSO Actually Do?
SENSOs were multi-tasking experts which included operating both acoustic and non-acoustic weapons systems for either anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, land warfare or as per battle-group tasking.
One of the things ChatGPT forgot to mention is that the SENSO not only had to perform myriad tasks while operating, trying not to puke was a constant variable each time you launched. Hot, humid, bouncing around at low level over the ocean that’s as green as that giant screen in front of you. Don’t hurl or even get nauseous, because not only can that get you and your crew killed, but the fate of Western Civilization rests upon the frontline SENSOs ability to operate.
Their primary responsibilities included:
Passive acoustic monitoring: Using sonobuoys (floating microphones) to detect underwater sounds—engine noise, propeller cavitation, and hull acoustics of enemy submarines.
Electronic surveillance (ESM/ELINT): Detecting, classifying, and geolocating radar and communications emissions from adversary ships, aircraft, or subs.
Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD): Spotting minute variations in Earth’s magnetic field caused by large metal objects—like submarines.
Weapons deployment: Helping guide torpedoes, Tactical Air-Launched Decoys (TALDs), and even nuclear depth charges.
Aerial refueling coordination: In later years, the S-3B took on a critical tanker role, and SENSOs assisted with mission planning and fuel control.
Surface surveillance and overland recon: Using radar, FLIR, and other sensors to spot drug runners, smuggling ships, and hostile naval movements, bringing on the era of “Armed Scout” missions.
Missions and Combat Use
The Viking wasn’t just a Cold War platform—it flew real-world missions, including:
Operation Desert Storm (1991): Vikings flew night sorties in the role of Armed Scouts, engaged in Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) with Tactical Air-Launched Decoys (TALDs), tracked Iraqi naval units, and supported mining operations in ports like Umm Qasr as well as low level night reconnaissance missions.
Posing for the camera seemed like one of the few ways to forget about how incredibly scared I was. Sorry Lockheed, but you guys never designed the Viking for overland SEAD strikes, or night low-levels over the oil rigs, and we knew it. Way too slow, loud and undefended. (Photo taken 17 Jan 91 just prior to the coordinated Air Wing 2 mining strike on the port facility of Umm Qasr, Iraq)
RIP Lt. Tom “TC” Costen, Lt. Charlie “Tuna” Turner, A-6 Intruder “Jackal 404”, VA-155
I never got to fly in the upgraded “Bravo” version with its tricked-out new toys, like the Harpoon Anti-Ship Cruise Missile and ISAR Radar. I heard they were fun.
Drug interdiction and Search and Rescue: Viking crews supported missions in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, tracking narco-subs and smugglers, as well as could perform long range Search and Rescue coordination with its increased on-station and loiter capabilities.
Carrier protection: In a typical Carrier Battle Group, Vikings extended the reach of the fleet by hundreds of miles, acting as early-warning and first-strike platforms against submarine threats.
Over-the-Horizon Targeting (OTH-T): Feeding real-time sensor data to Aegis-class cruisers and carrier flag staff.
Training and Qualification
Becoming a Viking SENSO wasn’t easy. Candidates typically scored extremely high on ASVAB tests and underwent rigorous selection and schooling, including:
Naval Aircrew Candidate School (NACCS)
AW “A” School and Fleet Replacement Squadron (VS-41 at NAS North Island)
SERE School: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training— Prisoner of War training in anti-Marxist brainwashing and other psychological warfare defenses.
TS/SCI Clearance: Required due to handling of sensitive surveillance equipment and classified data.
These Sailors were some of the Navy’s sharpest enlisted minds. They could be E-4s—barely out of their teens—directing billion-dollar carrier assets with their sensor readings.
The End of an Era
By the mid-2000s, the Navy retired the S-3 fleet. Its ASW mission was distributed to the land-based P-3 Orion and later the P-8 Poseidon aircraft, while the aerial refueling mission transitioned to Super Hornets. But no other platform has matched the carrier-based, four-person teamwork and operational versatility of the Viking.
And no enlisted aircrew role has replaced the Viking SENSO—the elite few who operated in the back of a jet, often completely alone in darkness, soaked in sweat, JP-5 and fear, trusting their training and instincts to keep the fleet alive.
Night launches were scary. So many things could go wrong even before you’re airborne. One night after an extremely hard catapult launch, just as we left the flight deck, the pilot called out.. “Oh my God, I’ve got the worst vertigo of my life” (I’ll have to write about that interesting hop at a later time)
Numbers, Fun Facts, and Bragging Rights
Total S-3 aircraft built: ~186
S-3 crew per squadron: Approx. 60–80 personnel, made up mostly of Officers both Pilots and Naval Flight Officers(NFOs) Our squadron had 15 Enlisted AW SENSOs
Estimated total SENSOs (1974–2009): Less than 2,500 qualified Viking SENSOs across 35 years
Carrier Arrested Landings: SENSOs often racked up 200+ “traps,” including night landings in stormy seas
Nicknames: SENSOs were sometimes playfully (and enviously) referred to as “Johnny Awesomes” or “FAWs” (F---ing AWs) due to their reputation for smarts, guts, and those really cool flight suits, flight jackets and Navy issue sunglasses. (SENSOs were also subject matter experts in modesty. Just ask any of them.)
Legacy
Ask any former Viking pilot or aircrewman, and they’ll tell you: the SENSO was the backbone of the mission. Quietly brilliant, deeply committed, and cool under pressure. The legacy of the Viking SENSO lives on in memories, camaraderie, and stories still shared in reunions and forums across the nation.
And while the Navy may no longer fly the Viking, those of us who wore Aircrew wings—and lived that life—still hear the faint flow tones of a Soviet Akula, still smell the JP-5, and still remember what it felt like to be on the hunt in a sea of darkness.
Fair winds and following seas to every fellow SENSO.
You trained to be the best. You WERE the best. And you earned every annotation that you see in your Aviators Flight Log Book.
That’s Naval History!