I also enjoy the historical tidbit hidden in plain sight of the name of the main thoroughfare on NS Norfolk, CV Towway, coming from it's original use as a Towway/taxiway from Chambers to the carrier piers for onload of aircraft and other aviation related equipment. I've seen pics of lines of WWII/Korea vintage aircraft taxiing over to the CVs but can't find them on the internet right now.
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SOAR
- Thread starter KODAK
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Then there’s that time they spilled 24 depth charges on the tow way! Classified until just 10 years or so ago.
Seventy-Five Years Ago: Tragedy on the Tow Way
The artifact, history, and event blog for the United States Navy's Hampton Roads Naval Museum. Located in Norfolk, Virginia.
hamptonroadsnavalmuseum.blogspot.com
Navy does SAR pretty damn well . . .
Just wow! Look at all those seaplanes, virtually useless because you might encounter a sea state over 3. Complete waste of money. Didn't anyone consider the sea state limitations of seaplanes? And to think there are pictures like these from North Island, Key West, Corpus, Alameda, Navy Bases all over the world. So glad we understand the seaplane limitations of sea state so much better today.
I just don't think it is that hard. What is the currency requirement for landing the ski-equipped C-130s? They don't even have an analogy to a freshwater lake to practice on, they have to go all the way to Greenland for a training site. You could give the mission to the guard unit that does ski flying, they could own the oddball C-130 with alternatives to wheels mission set.
‘Old-school’ training gets aircrews qualified for LC-130 Arctic, Antarctic ops on JSTOR
Jason Sherman, ‘Old-school’ training gets aircrews qualified for LC-130 Arctic, Antarctic ops, Inside the Air Force, Vol. 28, No. 31 (August 4, 2017), pp. 7-9www.jstor.org
That's pretty ironic since that particular unit didn't listen to the specific passdown from the previous one that operated LC-130's in the Antarctic on how to operate there, then promptly wrecked on of their birds on their first season down south doing exactly what the previous unit told them not to do.
All that takes time, money and training for a very niche mission that could be spent elsewhere. Give me enough money and I can get you a Space Shuttle Door Gunner, doesn't mean it is a good idea.
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And how many seaplanes are there now?
Its funny because in researching my responses to this thread the general reason why there aren't seaplanes anymore and why the ekranoplan was only a science experiment for the USSR was because their utility was heavily limited by sea state and that land based aircraft could operate more often than seaplanes because they didn't have that limitation.
But can you get me a A/S-3C Viking Warrior?
There is already an excellent option already in service for that very mission, and one that has proven it can operate in the open ocean.
It's very expensive but likely a lot less than some C-130's on floats is going to end up costing us.
You are conflating the objection to one idea with a reluctance to new ideas period? I am all for fresh, new ideas that make sense and have a mission in mind but don't like ones that seem to originate from the 'bright idea fairy' without a lot of realism or actual mission to them. That is where I put the SC-130, which doesn't seem to fit into a realistic scenario in the Pacific.
You sure?
The Guard had overlapped support with VXE-6 for 10 years before taking it over completely, and grabbed some of the VXE-6 guys who transferred over (including an AOCS classmate), and to my knowledge have crashed zero birds.
That's a cool airplane. It has a separate engine just for blowing air over the flaps and tail for STOL, and operates in up to 3 meter seas. Fly by wire, with some mode for landing in those big seas using DLC.
We should have a couple of exchange pilots working with them.
Apparently, they are about as rare as humor in this thread. Larger point, to the extent sea state is an issue, it always has been, just as icing and visibility remains for our more advanced aircraft today. It is simply a limitation. We accommodate limitations and work around them as necessary. Some days sea state will be an issue, just like icing is when operating any aircraft.
Lots of seaplanes, but not a single floatplane to be found among them. That is, I think, is pretty key to the debate here when it comes specifically to the C-130 on floats idea.
Then you promote the redesigned C-130 with hull?
We had several VXE-6 types in my first squadron and while they did overlap they didn't do the full mission set without the Navy guys did until they left, according to them. Their first season alone down south, should have specified, they had a mishap doing something the Navy guys told them not to. I think it specifically had to do with how they landed on unprepared ice fields while checking for crevasses, skimming the top doing a very long 'touch-n-go' without landing before actually doing a full stop. One of the guys showed us videos of them doing it and said the ANG guys screwed up and 'wrecked' one of their birds (apparently not a total loss) along with some other mistakes.