Posted on 10/20/2015 7:19:16 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Makes sense with the commies running around in submarines now. China and NK.
Keep in mind also that the Canadian CP-140, their version of the P-3 Orion, uses the S-3’s ASW suite. So even if pulling old units from storage (the ASW capability was pulled from the S-3 long before the type itself left service) rather than building something new, active/current working operational knowlege of it exists.
Uh huh...
The thing about the engines raises a good point: the S-3 was designed to use a lot of off the shelf components. The landing gear, iirc, was the same as the A-7’s, for instance.
The Navy doesn’t have much of a problem flying three of them as range aircraft out of Point Mugu. And I think NASA has one or two more operating out of Glenn. A fleet of 12 is definitely do-able, particularly forca country like South Korea.
I wonder which South American country wants them? The Argies and Brazilians are invested in S-2 Turbo Trackers, and Brazil is buying several more airframes from US sources for COD/AEW/Tanking for their Sao Paulo (ex-Foch) carrier.
We ought to return them to our Navy as well, not necessarily as an ASW platform but as the flying gas stations they were relegated to. After their retirement, F/A-18s had to take over the task of carrier-based inflight refueling. F/A-18s flying with massive drop tanks aren’t flying with ordnance.
The problem with using S-3s as tankers is that they don’t have that much gas to give. A super hornet with five wet stores has more on the wings than S-3 can carry total.
Yeah, thats a pretty stupid line.
The threat didn’t go away. It was just reduced to the point where land based fixed wing ASW, shipborne ASW and helo ASW could handle it. Making carrier based fixed wing ASW extraneous/redundant.
The S-3s lost their ASW capabilities in the 1990s. Mission computers and MAD got yanked. They still had the ability to drop sonobouys, but most of the launching tubes for those were plated over.
I guess scales of economy/logistics go against having S-3s as pure refuelers. Using the Super Hornet makes more sense in this regard.
“F/A-18s flying with massive drop tanks aren’t flying with ordnance.”
Yeah, and it wears out much needed fighter airframes.
An S-3B with ISAR radar makes a fine maritime patrol aircraft.
Analog technology, eh?
Then again, the cost-cutting admirals in OUR Navy were the ones who never fixed their old equipment when the Russian sub threat reduced (was never eliminated!) after Reagan won the Cold War.
Replacement for the S-3 in the tanking role was factored into the Super Hornet buy numbers.
And those numbers have been increased anyways thanks to delays in the F-35 and the need to retire trapped-out Legacy Bugs. We have at least one airwing thats all Super Hornet now (not including the E-2s, C-2s and MH-60)
When the F-35 starts hitting squadron service we’ll have a surplus of Super Hornets. So there shouldn’t be a concern about using them for tanking.
The ASW suites were yanked in the 1990s when fixed wing ASW was removed from the carrier wing. There was no need to upgrade it because it wasn’t seen as necessary anymore.
Just seems like a waste of an expensive fighter aircraft though, tasking it with refueling when it could be blowing s**t up.
I'm also a little nostalgic. I miss the S3s and their signature high-pitched wail flying out of NAS Jax.
I love the old “War Hoover”
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