[lentulusgracchus]

Another thread had photos of USS Forrestal landing a C-130 back in 1961. Multiple untrapped landings and multiple unassisted t/o's, all from the carrier's deck. A bit of a tight fit on a Forrestal-class, but it'd be duck soup on a Nimitz.

Build boat-bottoms on 'em and Bob's your uncle.

The Sov's loved flying boats for ASW, operated them for years. Not sure why they retired them, maybe the "May" had such long legs the Red Fleet decided they didn't need the older flying boats anymore.

The thing is, they can land ...... and just sit there for hours with their dipping sonars deployed.

With the C-130, you'd get a proven, widely-supported type with big payload, long range, and decent airspeed that you could operate off carriers. It'd be a formidable ASW platform.

[Fred Hayek]

I think Beriev still has some offerings on the market.
The flying boat would still have applications today, and even more than just ASW. Add in SAR, other maritime control, and even littoral operations. The latter would include ops teams dropoff and extraction, when the range is to far for helo. What the hey, the same was probably done with the PBY Catalinas back in WWII Pacific. The old slow Dumbo was a workhorse.