• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

MMA News/Rumors?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Jaxs170

www.YANKEESSUCK.com
I'm mostly directing this to anyone in VT-31 or 35, but welcome any responses. Has anyone heard any more news on when/if the MMA may come to be? Any word on how the training pipeline may change if we go from a prop to a jet? What squadrons could be getting the MMA first/last?
 

zab1001

Well-Known Member
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
If you're in prop advanced, stand by for P-3s for the next 10 years at least. It's entirely possible even longer if they decide to start pulling reserve birds (which are newer) and giving them to the fleet guys (we're losing anywhere from 10-50% depending on who you listen to).

In the meantime, make sure you pack your NATOPS, a lunch, and a garbage bag to line the toilet with (they don't flush).
 

paul joyce

Registered User
I just attended a briefing from our commodore (CPRW-11) while he was here in Rota and it looks like the earliest, and I emphasize the word earliest, we will see any change is in 2009. As far as the VQ community, we may be going to a Gulfstream 5. I believe the VP bubbas are looking at the same thing with the Army leading the way for that change. MMA would be if Boeing gets the contract. Either way, I would not count on the training pipeline to make any changes to they way they are doing business now. Look forward to seeing you in the fleet.
PJ
 

webmaster

The Grass is Greener!
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Good info Paul. As far as we have been briefed, we are still on track for the Lockheed or Boeing replacement, and that you guys (VQ) jumped ship to go to the gulfstream (couldn't wait for us to get a replacement). The airframe decision will be this March (or Feb, lost track)...
 

PropStop

Kool-Aid free since 2001.
pilot
Contributor
about nine months ago i had the joy of running an Admiral around for a change of command. he was a career VP guy now heading up some R&D think tank back in DC. He said that though Boeing claims they can produce the MMA within six months (yes, that's months) of being given the contract, they haven't worked out some of the kinks - eg. 737 hasn't got a bomb bay. You simply can't cut a plane open and slap in a bomb bay all willy-nilly.

also, you p-3ers know, that much of the lift from the P-3 comes from the prop wash. I'd hate to be at 200', high AOB, with turbofans. Also, turbofans would have to spool up, they couldn't just run at 100% like the P-3 engines.

I rather hope they go with the newly produced P-3 vice the 737.

I'll be happy with whatever we get - so long as it doesn't land on a boat.
 

webmaster

The Grass is Greener!
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Either/or, will nice to have a new plane, but it isn't going to happen for quite awhile (2010-12). During the Boeing demo over a year ago, they showed the schematics on the bomb bay, already been wind tunnel tested and built, isn't a clamshell type like the current one, folds up into the sides of the bomb bay instead, so not in the slipstream. It was interesting when they demoed a single engine climb out with simulated onstation weight profile (lead bags in the fuselage), climbed out better than the P3 on four engines.

As for 200', well, I imagine that you would just have to be congnizant of any limitations, I am sure the altitude hold will work vice the nonexistant ones that I have seen in the fleet (or degraded ones in single channel that kick offline after 30 minutes of heating up... can you say a weak EDC onstation and all the electronics kicking?). Plus, there are still those hazreps that you read of a crew losing the bubble in a high AOB turn, losing airspeed, and pulling out at ~70 feet as noted by the FE....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top