Boeing 737 Maritime aircraft

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 06:53:39 GMT, user wrote:

737. How much improvement over current capabilities for USW, ASW, BDA,
OTH targeting, and SAR can the MMA promise?

(1) More to the point: the replacement aircraft (whatever it is) will be able
to fly. The P-3s are excessively old and will soon be unable to do so.
Therefore, a replacement in some form is *required*.

(2) The capabilities of the replacement aircraft will be different than the
capabilities of the P-3. This is quite intentional, since the mission of the
P-3 has changed A LOT in recent years. The old mission of hunting Soviet
submarines is obsolete. If the aircraft do not adapt, they will not continue
to exist.

(3) Finally, there's the question of *which* aircraft will fill the MMA role.
The 737 is *one* of several proposals. If you don't like the 737, pick one of
the others.

It seems that you do not understand (1) and (2). And, finally, "change
happens". Obviously you do not want change, so you will never be happy, no
matter what is done.


--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
Photo Features, Military FAQs, and more - http://www.hazegray.org/

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:02:25 GMT, user wrote:

airborne surveillance mission will be. The arguement for 737 MMA and
the cost involved just isn't convincing enough to a lot of us. I'd

So what is your proposed alternative?

Keep flying the P-3s forever, even when they start falling apart?

--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
Photo Features, Military FAQs, and more - http://www.hazegray.org/

Andrew Toppan ) writes:
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:02:25 GMT, user wrote:

airborne surveillance mission will be. The arguement for 737 MMA and
the cost involved just isn't convincing enough to a lot of us. I'd

So what is your proposed alternative?

Keep flying the P-3s forever, even when they start falling apart?

That's what we do up here in Canada...

Andrew Toppan wrote:

(3) Finally, there's the question of *which* aircraft will fill the
MMA role. The 737 is *one* of several proposals. If you don't like
the 737, pick one of the others.

Actually, there is only one remaining alternative, after the last
downselect. Lockheed Martin's Orion-21 is pretty much exactly what these
folks say they want -- a rewinged P-3C AIP with some newer avionics and
revised wing stations.

The debate here is probably going to be speed vs cost. The P-3 rewing has
to be the cheap option (they're even recycling the current engines). OTOH,
the P-3 is slow, and has been handicappd by this in some recent operations.
And the last couple fo P-3 life extensions have run into unexpected airframe
issues, so new construction might be desirable.



--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:16:48 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

And the last couple fo P-3 life extensions have run into unexpected airframe
issues, so new construction might be desirable.

I have a hard time seeing a life extension as being practical, considering the
Navy is cutting the active P-3 force in half, and reducing the deployment
cycle of the remainder, over fatigue issues.

--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
Photo Features, Military FAQs, and more - http://www.hazegray.org/

Andrew Toppan wrote:
On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:16:48 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

And the last couple fo P-3 life extensions have run into unexpected
airframe issues, so new construction might be desirable.

I have a hard time seeing a life extension as being practical,
considering the Navy is cutting the active P-3 force in half, and
reducing the deployment cycle of the remainder, over fatigue issues.

Yes, The P-3 service life assssment turned up smoe unpleasant surprises in
terms of fatigue life expenditure.

The idea behind Orion-21 is that rather than patching the trouble spots,
they would just replace the parts that are suffering fatigue problems. I
believe Orion-21 would get an entirely new wing, for example.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

250 to 195 due to FLE issues is not even close to half, Andrew, and I
believe you should reread my previous posts and try again to
understand what I am trying to say. I am not saying it is a good idea
to prolong the P3 to eternity. Rather that the P3 IS adapted to
current missions quite well (everybody knows ASW is currently not the
Primary mission, and I stated other missions in my post the P3 is
currently performing, but it is prudent to retain top notch
capabilities in ASW) If there is anything unclear about my previous
post, that the 737 is not, in my opinion, the answer from a
warfighters standpoint, rather than get personal with me thinking I
don't fully understand the big picture, please get specific with me?
This last post by you and your weak attack on me sounds like you
didn't fully read the post. Try again please?

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:24:22 -0500, Andrew Toppan
wrote:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:16:48 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

And the last couple fo P-3 life extensions have run into unexpected airframe
issues, so new construction might be desirable.

I have a hard time seeing a life extension as being practical, considering the
Navy is cutting the active P-3 force in half, and reducing the deployment
cycle of the remainder, over fatigue issues.

Again Andy my friend, please reread the post from yesterday. I believe
an updated version of the P-7 LRAACA or the P-4 that were well into
design stages in the 80's are perfect alternatives in my opinion.

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:52:51 -0500, Andrew Toppan
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:02:25 GMT, user wrote:

airborne surveillance mission will be. The arguement for 737 MMA and
the cost involved just isn't convincing enough to a lot of us. I'd

So what is your proposed alternative?

Keep flying the P-3s forever, even when they start falling apart?

Where were the CP-140 Aurora's you guys fly made?

On 10 Dec 2003 23:58:29 GMT, (Darrell A.
Larose) wrote:

Andrew Toppan ) writes:
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:02:25 GMT, user wrote:

airborne surveillance mission will be. The arguement for 737 MMA and
the cost involved just isn't convincing enough to a lot of us. I'd

So what is your proposed alternative?

Keep flying the P-3s forever, even when they start falling apart?

That's what we do up here in Canada...

"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message news:KttBb.7541 It's one of two candiates for the Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft. The
other, from Lock-Mart, is yet another P-3 rebuild called Orion-21.

The 737 MMA is based on the 737-800 but has a bunch of modifications,
including a -900's wings, heavier gear, and a weapon bay forward of the wing
carry-through.
One quibble Thomas. The Boeing offering is the 737-700 IGW.
http://www.boeing.com/ids/allsystems...3/story09.html