In the past, what aircraft were required to do, and hence what underpinned procurement and the design process, was summed up in “primary”, “secondary”, “tertiary” etc role statements. Nowadays the broad equivalent is “Single Statement of User Need” accompanied by a few Key User Requirements. Throughout development, and especially during trade-off, one is constantly mindful of these endorsed requirements, because they set the programme (including financial and technical) boundaries. For this reason, and while acknowledging that some of the more expansive uses mooted here are probably valid, care should be taken to differentiate between endorsed requirements and aspirations.
Direct comparison between legacy aircraft and a notional future replacement (e.g. AEW/ASaC and MASC) is impossible without knowing what the SSoUN of MASC is. (I don’t know). What produced ASaC was a primary role of “xx hours continuous air coverage for a CAG”. Under that definition the ASaC fleet is not entirely fit for purpose, as there aren’t enough. This is true of most fleets.
It is also common knowledge that a basic premise underpinning FOAEW (now MASC) was transfer of the ASaC mission system, which assumes a similar role, certainly in terms of operating altitude, radar capability, time on task, and more. Again, I’m not sure what difference there is between the FOAEW and MASC requirements. But one thing is for sure – if that role / SSoUN has changed then MASC will be significantly more expensive than envisaged, even allowing for the aforesaid, and completely barking assumption, that the mission system could simply be transferred to a new platform, be it RW or FW. My guess is that some of these points have been missed in CVF/MASC IPTs, and resultant funding issues are causing headaches.