NURSE,
I seem to remember one of the original bids for the MR2 replacement was based on the re-use of "surplus" P-3 Orions. That bid didn't win, so presumably it wasn't the cheapest.
If you take a "surplus" P-3 then you are probably going to have to re-engine it, gut the interior, put in new avionics, etc. Didn't we try to re-use an old airframe for the maritime role recently? How did that work out again?
Thunderbird 7,
You need to be careful posting a link like that. Before you know it some armchair pprune CAS/CDS/procurer will be talking about getting some "cheap", "surplus" F-4 airframes, shoving some "cheap" modern avionics in them and using them to replace Tornado/Typhoon/F-35/etc as a money saving measure. Thankfully that will be on a different thread to this one though!
Edited to add:
NURSE,
I forgot to reply to your comment regarding the use of "spare" C-130J frames once A400M arrives. If you read the comments made by the AT guys regarding the C-130J you will see that it is eating up fatigue at a rapid rate of knots on Ops (wind centre boxes are I believe the area suffering most) and they will generally be as knackered as a knackered thing when the A400M eventually arrives (later than the planning date currently being used no doubt!).
Last edited by Biggus; 9th Mar 2011 at 13:31.