USN Time to Bring Back the S-3 Viking?

[Uncle Fester]

Training? For monkey skill aircraft operating type of stuff, from maintenance to flying, how much could have changed? The training plan exists. There are even subject matter experts still around happy to share/be employed. Back of the plane mission stuff will likely be updated for the ROK. Manufactures and contractors produce that training. Hardware, parts and support? Lockheed is on board. Sure it costs money. But the point is it is less expensive than starting from scratch or even modifying COTS. All you need is a reason. Korea has a reason and government support to proceed. The reason the US won't do it isn't that it costs a lot of money or there is no reason as much as it costs more than the pin heads that should know better think it is worth.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm talking about the objections that Big Navy will raise/is raising to the Hoover Revival, not my personal opinion. Fester thinks it's perfectly feasible if done right and would solve a lot of current issues (trap life on the Rhinos, for one). But Fester is just an asshole reservist and nobody cares what I think.

Part of the problem is that no one has defined the scope of a revival. If we're bringing back the S-3 for the long haul, then Big Navy will insist on career tracks for S-3 guys, re-establishing the RAG, building up a full supply chain, etc; in other words - buying and rebuilding infrastructure, and the Navy hates building infrastructure for anything it regards as "temporary". And if it's not temporary, then they've got to get that money from somewhere, and since our budget isn't exactly growing, that means taking money from some other program of record. So please go find me a few PMs who are willing to give up budget to fund bringing back an airplane none of them are invested in.