Lockheed Wants To Bring The S-3 Viking Back From The DeadThe Navy's choice to retire the S-3 Viking in 2009 was thought of by many as extremely nearsighted and brutally lacking in creativity. Now, a half decade later, Lockheed, the aircraft's original manufacturer, wants to resurrect the Vikings from their collective grave in Arizona, and fly them from America's flattops once again in a crucial role.
While in service, the S-3 represented a voluminous, comparatively long endurance platform that had incredible potential for re-fitting and growth. In an age where an aircraft's avionics and adaptability are the name of the game over raw performance, the S-3 seemed like a perfect canvas for which NAVAIR could paint their creative dreams upon. And even more importantly, the S-3s were already paid for.
Fast forward to today, and the Viking may be largely gone (it still flies with VX-30 for range control duties and NASA has one for testing) but it is not forgotten. In fact, right before its premature retirement, the Viking was just finding a new role in the deserts of Iraq, utilizing the F-14's hand-me-down LITENING targeting pods, and other plug and play sensors, to detect roadside bombs and provide route clearing duties, all with fantastic results.
The fact that the jet could stay up in the air for hours, without needing costly and high demand tanker gas, was a huge incentive for the DoD to keep the once-sub hunter turned lackluster aerial tanker flying for surveillance and attack duties. Seeing as the aircraft also sported an internal weapons bay that was perfectly sized for today's shrinking and super capable precision guided munitions, the S-3 could have been inexpensively turned into a hardcore weapons and surveillance truck, basically doing the same job as an MQ-9 Reaper.
Link to
FOXTROT ALPHA blog.
