This is a great a/c for that mission, even though it's really just a shrunken P-5M w/ turbo-prop engines. I think the SysCom people - or whoever manages the supply system nowadays - really hate having to support small buys of "different" type a/c. You're spot on, though: the a/c would be great at remote fields in thePacific & elsewhere.
Oh, there's no chance in hell we'd ever actually buy any, I'm just saying it would give us a capability we don't have now and could use. Don't think of it as a substitute for a helo, but instead as a plane with the range and capability of a Herk, but with the ability to also set down and haul survivors aboard. Yeah, it could do that only in relatively calm sea states, but that's more than a Herk can do.
Ahh, the US-2. When I was in Iwakuni I would watch US-1s do 'touch/splash and go's' in the harbor next to the runway, they were slloooooowwwww, about 90 knots in the pattern and being that big looked even slower. As awesome as they are and even recognizing their continued though specific utility the US-2 is pretty much a 'make work' program that the Japanese are so good at. They make about one a year and it is very expensive to boot, all for a very limited number in service (4 or 5 total I think) that probably doesn't give them much return on the cost. The main reason the Indians are looking at them is political and the Japanese would probably sell them at a discount just to keep the factory humming. All that said I think it would just be a nice to have, the US-1/2s can land in pretty rough seas for a seaplane due to it's unique hull but would still be a 'niche' rescuer for the rare open-ocean SAR. An AAR-equipped helo or V-22 would probably make more sense.
Which makes me wonder about doing a SAR hoist with the V-22. Does the tremendous downwash make that impractical?
I don't know if I'd call it a niche capability for the Coasties. It'd be a utility truck, just like the C-130, and I could think of a dozen new tricks you could do with a flying boat. Take vbss teams way out to sea, for example, and you can take more guys and equipment than a -60. And without organizing IFR support (which the Coasties don't have either). Again, not that I think it'd ever happen. I just find it interesting that there's more interest and money in military blimps these days than seaplanes.
I may be misinterpreting your post, but the US-2 in my logbook, was a Grumman 'Tracker" (w/ASW gear removed) ... and only made water landings when experiencing a double engine failure on a carrier launch. BzB
The Japanese refer to their newest flying boat as the US-2, the previous version was the US-1 which itself was a version of the PS-1 (aren't you glad you asked? ). They also have/had C-2s and T-2s, not the kind you are thinking of though.
Heard about this last week - then remembered it when I was reading this thread: "Three U.S. Senators have introduced a bill that would transfer 14 surplus C-27J Spartan aircraft from the Department of Defense to the U.S. Forest Service to be used as air tankers." http://wildfiretoday.com/2012/07/26...uces-bill-to-transfer-c-27j-aircraft-to-usfs/
It's my understanding a USCG -60 with the three aux tanks has almost 6 hrs of legs. Seems like a good SAR platform to me.
But you do know that the 60, no matter how much gas and endurance, doesn't fly as fast as the slowest fixed wing? But, in can land on water (once)~
If this plane ends up as a water-bomber in US service, IMO it'll be the greatest waste of a new air asset in our history. I'm not sure any longer that the USAF can successfully purchase a pickup truck these days w/out totally FUBARing the entire process.
The trucks would have parts made in all fifty states, cost $100,000 each, and it would be ten years before they made it into service- at which time someone would finally notice that steering wheels somehow got left out of the original specification...
No brakes. And if someone else needed a truck with no brakes that could only turn left, the AF would suddenly rediscover an urgent need for their 100,000 dollar trucks with no brakes that could only turn left and refuse to share their toys for fear of losing their "unique capability" to someone else in the DOD who could use it.
So, if the Air Force has no need for these, and the Army was so dissatisfied with the support (and found the justification) to spend a buttload of their limited FW budget on these really nice C-27s, why not just give them back to the Army? I know it's to keep the Army from getting any FW and putting their camel's nose in the tent, but we're going to give brand new C-27s to the Forestry Service just so the AF can tell the Army to go F themselves? Seems as the budgets shrinking, might not hurt to give them to the Army and have them help out on Tactical Air Lift.
They (and the Navy SH-3) had an amphibious helicopter capability with the Pelican. Still I doubt it was ever used often enough to justify the compromise in engineering to make it happen. The only thing I really see a Sea Plane doing or bringing capability wise would be long range medical evacuation of an injured crew member. And you'd have to be a long way out to really be away from the reach of a land based Helo with AR capability.
I used to fly the H-3, and I will tell you, even if we never had to use the water landing capability, it was nice to have that option (and even better having the engine failure-float or depart option)/
My thoughts exactly. Meanwhile we are wearing out the hooks and the AF pulled this program out from under the Army as a power play. So no one is getting screwed here except for the joe that has to wait 4 extra days to go on leave because there aren't enough -47s around to run the ring route or the guys out in the valleys who have to wait a lot longer for that pallet of 155 shells. The US Army has lost a BDE's worth of aircraft so far and 30 something -58s to hostile fire and spending money on a blk 3 apache, wtf? At least they finally dropped the -60 fly by wire crap. So between the Army tooling around without direction and the AF not playing ball, not sure where that is going to leave army FW.
We need Block III. Good god we need Block III. We gain so much capability specific to the environmental shortcomings we face in the current environment its not even funny but thats a whole other thread. The Guard was going to take the budgetary burden for the C-27. So really what active duty is spending their money on isnt that big an impact. In fact as we upgrade our rotory wing fleet on the Active side we will finally be able to retire a lot of the ancient Guard/Reserve aircraft. Hell in another year or two we might actually be able to finally put the Alpha model Apache out to pasture.
