PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - What price a Carrier?
View Single Post
Old 9th Oct 2002, 22:52
  #12 (permalink)  
Magic Mushroom
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Lincs
Posts: 453
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Cool

Chaps,

While the USN CVN's do still have their own organic tanker capability in the form of S-3B's, these assets are fairly limited in their ability to support carrier ops. Right now in ops over Afghanistan, the S-3 tankers play a VERY limited role and the carrier boys (US and French) are totally reliant on land based AAR to do a credible job. The Viking's are mainly employed as a 'safety blanket' for stuff recovering to the boat.

From my experience of recent ops in BH, Kosovo and Afghanistan, land based AAR is still the prefrred choice of the USN (even when they still had KA-6D's and ES-3A's to help out the AAR flow).

Once the S-3 is retired later this decade, I understand that the FA-18E/F will take the organic AAR role for the Spam flat tops. Bet the Hornet boys will love that!!!! Bring back the A-3!!!!

Similarly, the USN and French E-2C's are very much sidelined in Afghanistan ops due to lack of endurance and sensor limitations, but then maybe I'm a little biased!

Regards
M2
Magic Mushroom is offline