This is crazy! Surely anyone should be able to see that it is madness to buy something off-the-shelf that has been tailored to meet the needs of such a small and specialized force as the US Navy, who clearly lack expertise in this area.
Why can't the Australians see what is staring them in the face? They should be rounding up about a dozen Shackleton Mk 1s. They could then strip each one down individually, throwing away everything except the tailwheel. Then, right, they could install LPG-conversions to the Griffon engines - removing any unnecessary fire suppressing systems to improve safety.
The changes to the engines should just be enough to ensure that the stability and control has to be totally re-engineered. This would be relatively easy and could utilize the latest in Vauxhall Corsa body-kit technology together with a state of the art rubber-band attached to the control column that will stop the pilot waggling it too much. This system would also help to ensure that the aircraft continues to fail to meet the equivalent civil airworthiness standards.
The rest of the airframe could then be rebuilt identically, paying careful attention to ensure that no inherent design flaws are inadvertently ironed-out. Costs could be kept down by building a jig based on the first airframe and then only minor mods would be required to the jig for each subsequent totally-different airframe. This would save the costly process of requiring anybody to rummage around the design-shop archives to see how the airframes were originally built. Furthermore, this policy would bring the added bonus of creating the world's leading Shackleton airframe jig modification facility.
Some modern avionics could be bunged-in somewhere; a bloke down the pub who used to work on Shackletons (or was it Lincolns?) says there are a couple of leads available where the Oboe and Gee sets used to be - should be enough.
Life cycle costs would be lowered by reducing the crew complement so we'll get rid of err... one pilot, a navigator and the wireless operator/air gunner? Yep that should do it - the rest of the crew will be able to cope won't they? Well they'll just have to manage or the AOC will tell them off.
The result will be a great aircraft for the 21st century. It will be called Shackleton 2020 - sounds catchy doesn't it? The projected in-service date will be 2029. If the press don't like it we'll just change the name a few times - that usually works.
The beauty of this project though lies in on-going benefits. The basic airframe is so old, no scrub that word, so proven - that there are absolutely no prospects of obtaining any unwanted export orders. This means that once the last aircraft has been delivered, the factory can be closed and sold off to a holding company - whose directors definitely won't have had anything to do with the project. The aircraft should hopefully have taken so long to build that the land on which the factory stood will then be worth billions for housing. The real legacy of Shackleton 2020 will be to get rid of a horrible, environmentally-unfriendly factory and a noisy airfield, replacing them with some nice 5-bedroom executive homes; which should sell at a premium as they would be so handy for the airport. The aviation industry heritage will be fully commemorated by naming the new roads on the development something like Lancaster Drive, Chadwick Place, A.V. Road (get it?).