11/30/2013. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "This aircraft was built for the USN by Douglas at El Segundo, California as an A3D-2P under the BuNo 144825, and this photographic reconnaissance version was the 206th of 283 Skywarriors built. It was delivered to the USN in December 1958 and subsequently assigned to Naval Air Test Center (NATC) Patuxent River, Maryland in 1959. It was used for carrier suitability trials, however, it never landed on an aircraft carrier.

Modified by Grumman with a huge nose radome (for which it was nicknamed "Snoopy") to house a five-foot Westinghouse radar antenna as a test bed for the Bendix AAM-N-10 Eagle missile to be used on the proposed Douglas F6D Missileer carrier-based fleet defense fighter. After termination of the Eagle and Misseleer programs in 1960, the aircraft was assigned to the PMTC (Pacific Missile Test Center) in Point Mugu, California. In 1962 it was redesignated NRA-3B.

In 1990 the outsized radome was removed and replaced with a normal size radome, taken from the NRA-3B with BuNo 144833, and a year later it was retired from the Navy. Subsequently it was loaned to Hughes Aircraft Corporation and registered N578HA on May29, 1992 it was used as a radar research and test aircraft at Van Nuys Airport, California. Hughes merged into The Raytheon Company in 1997 and the aircraft was reregistered N878RS.

On April 29, 2011 BuNo 144825 made its last flight to NAS Whidbey Island, where it has been restored by the A3 Skywarrior Whidbey Memorial Foundation to its original configuration for permanent display."