I forwarded this Forum question to LCDR Tim McGarvey, VS-35 Dept Head - San Diego, and just now recieved an answer that I thought you guys would be interested in.
From: "Tim McGarvey" <mcgarvey@san.rr.com>
To: <djxprice@hotmail.com>
Cc: "John Wickham" <JohnWickham@Airwarriors.com>
Subject: Fate of the Viking
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 12:02:22 -0700
Dan,
I am an S-3 pilot and received your question via John Wickham at Air
Warriors.com. Hopefully this answer is not too exhaustive for your query.
The short answer is: you probably will not fly Vikings and live in
beautiful San Diego. If you go Strike Naval Air and get JETS out of flight
school - you have a 80% chance of getting HORNETS (fly a super cool jet)
and live in LEMOORE (live in a hell hole) if you are stationed on the west
coast.
ABOUT HOURS: If your primary goal is to get into the airlines, the S-3 is
perfect due to the need for CREW COORDINATION. Single seat guys have a tough
time dealing with other folks in the cockpit after flying on their own and
doing everything themselves for so long. Hours will be about the same for
any platform - S-3s don't necessarily fly more hours than other jets. All
of my buddies who left S-3s got picked up by the MAJORS (United, American,
Delta, etc) pretty much immediately.
The long answer is...
The Viking is currently slated for retirement somewhere between 2005-2008.
However, there is a catch. (There's always a catch).
As you may know the S-3 is a multi-mission carrier based jet. We are tasked
by the battle group commander more than any other platform. Our missions
have been modified in the recent years but here is a summary in order of
hours dedicated to the mission:
1. Tanking Hornets - using a "buddy store" tanking package on the left wing
2. Sea Surveillance and Control (SSC)- Using the APS-137 ISAR (Inverse
Synthetic Aperture Radar) - the best sea surface radar in the fleet and a
Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) for seeing boats at night.
3. Electronic Surveillance (ESM) - listening for other folks' radars (boats,
SAMs, etc) and identifying them and their mode (surface search, tracking,
guidance for missiles,etc) and keeping our friends out of the bad guys
missile envelopes.
4. Under-Sea Warfare (USW) - recently phased out due to lack of funding and
a perception that the submarine threat is currently not out there (it use to
be a huge deal with the former Soviet subs out there)
5. airborne data and communications link
In addition we can drop bombs and shoot Harpoon missiles. On our next
deployment (1 week from today on board LINCOLN) we will have Maverick
missile capability and the ability to target overland real time targets and
feed the info to the strike package. (Hornets carrying laser guided bombs)
Before anyone will let us go, this needs to happen:
1. The SH-60F needs to be upgraded to SH-60S (Sierra) to better handle the
middle zone USW mission.
2. Inorganic (meaning not attached to the Carrier Battle Group) P-3 Orions
have to prove themselves in the Anti-Surface role (identifying sea surface
combatants and shooting them with Harpoon missiles - P-3s also have the ISAR
radar and can shoot Harpoons).
3. The new SUPER HORNET has to come on-line and has to be able to tank
itself. This is probably the biggest crow bar keeping the nails wedged out
of the S-3 coffin. You can't fly off the ship without a tanker available.
I hope this info is helpful to you. Please feel free to reply with any
other questions. Be advised, my email will change to
tmcgar@lincoln.navy.mil in one week due to deployment.
If I were you...
I would remain flexible, not think about it too much, do my best in college,
do my best in flight school, and make the best out of what they give me.
Everyone in Naval Air has a good time - its a fun job.
Tim
