Not up to speed on the "R" requirement on a CVN. I think the S-3's carried something in the neighborhood of 60 buoys in the belly.
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USN Another call to "bring back S-3's" (Vikings are Zombies)
- Thread starter ChuckMK23
- Start date
Gotta bring back Miss Piggy!
As one former 'Foo Dog' in my first squadron said, "Miss Piggy was a waste, fraud and abuse hotline call waiting to happen".
Do tell. What was special about this particular airplane?
'Miss Piggy' was the US-3A, I believe 7 were converted from S-3A's, cargo/COD versions that were developed to fill a sort of mini-COD role out of Diego Garcia for the carriers stuck in the IO, common in the early to mid-80's. They had 6 passenger seats (non-ejection) and could also carry big blivets on the wings in instead of fuel tanks.
It also happened to be a great CCX machine for all sorts of fun, sorry...'training', out of VRC-50's home base in Cubi and later Guam to all manner of WESTPAC locales when folks felt in the mood, in addition to transporting squadron sporting teams among other sundry duties. According to the former Foo Dogs in my squadron, even in the looser days of the 80's and early 90's more than a few folks thought many of those trips skirted the edge of appropriate usage of government equipment. And this from folks who generally thought many rules were more like guidelines.
The helos still use those while aboard.I'd love to see the reaction on the CVN's when told they have to start storing sonobuoys again
Yeah, I forgot about the Romeo’s
59 sonobouys. The ASW processors were removed in the mid to late 90s when some idiots thought the fall of the Soviet Union was the end of history. As to the technology as it existed during the life of the S-3, the ASW suite was very good. The same processors and avionic were on the CP-140 Aurora, an updated P-3 with the S-3 guts. The Canuks opted for the S-3 suite over the existing P-3C update III (I think). The limitation on the S-3 was that we had one enlisted AW reading the sonograms. If he was weak or got overloaded, there was no AW1 or AWC to look over his shoulder and provide "training" or other AWs to split up the work load. I don't know if the CP-140 still is running the same system. If so, then yes, there is support for it out there somewhere.
The Hoover had teething problems in the late 70s like most new airframes. Acceptance in the Airwing was sometimes a challenge and the reliability issues didn't always help. Also of interest to some here, VS leadership was a crap shoot. Some VP guys, some stoof drivers, and then there were the jet transition guys that were supposed to help with the expected change in culture from CVS/Stoof days to CV/jet. I had active duty skippers that were VP, and VA (A-7s) and one of the early S-3 only skippers. Saw department heads that were Viggie drivers, A-4s, P-3s and C-1s and S-2s. At one point, the RAG skipper was a former Black Pony! I saw my front office go from P-3 NFO to Vietnam combat A-7 pilot. Talk about culture changes.
The sweet spot for he War Hoover was after conversion to the B model and the new capabilities that came with it. By then the Viking was well enough known and the leadership was all jet VS. In addition to ASW it had capabilities that, as they say, were force multipliers. What the Hoover did was free up other platforms to do what they did best. Took ESM duties from the Hummer and VAQ, tanking and SSC from attack aircraft, could lay mines, shoot Harpoons and SLAMs in the littorals where a 3G aircraft could survive, and let the pointy nose guys get the glory. But alas, that period only lasted a few years before money (no peace dividend for the Hoov) and shortsightedness (no CV ASW threat, really?) doomed the Viking. It wasn't lack of mission or capability. The S-3B had great capabilities. There were just too many jets in the wing and a pretty unique logistics tail.
If you're going to go down that route, there's a hell of a lot more things wearing down the airframes and whittling away Rhino life span...
There's also much tougher problems to tackle with all that funding...like maybe putting together some of those shells sitting over on -106s flight line.
And -122s... It's Naval Air Depot Lemoore out here these days. "Master Jet Base" my ass...
Aren’t VMFA’s still flying A’s? They were as recently as a couple years ago.
-106 finally gave up trying to fly the one or two they had. Pretty sure the Marine FRS flies them pretty exclusively.
There's probably only one or two Navy Charlie studs at -106...if that. Most of the Chucks are flown by instructors now.
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I'd like to have more than one runway at a time at the east coast "master" jet base.And -122s... It's Naval Air Depot Lemoore out here these days. "Master Jet Base" my ass...
We have those cool flashing crosswalks though, and I hear that new solar farm they just built is really gonna save us some big dollars