Carrier on board delivery aircraft that is. An unexciting but vital aircraft. COD flies high priority cargo from land bases out to carriers at sea. Back in the day, I well remember LogAir, who flew a big turboprop Argosy transport into our base in Minnesota every day, loaded with spare parts for our fighters. Plenty of times we would tell Maintenance Control that we would have fighter so-and-so back in commission as soon as LogAir came in. That was on a stateside Air Force base in peacetime. I dare say the spare parts situation is worse at sea.
Anyhow, the existing fleet of C-2 Greyhounds, after many years of service, is in need of replacement or refurbishment. The Navy has a bid from Grumman to rebuild the weary Greyhounds, and a bid from Bell-Boeing to furnish V22 Osprey tiltrotors.
And now, Lockheed Martin is proposing to pull 70 or 80 S-3 Vikings out of the boneyard in Arizona, refurbish them, build new and larger fuselages for them. Cargo aircraft typically cube out before they weight out, in other words you run out of room to pack stuff into them long before the cargo gets too heavy to fly. So a new a bigger fuselage would make a better freighter and still be competitive on price. The S3 Viking is/was a twin jet carrier based antisub aircraft that the Navy retired a few years ago.
So, looks like the Navy is looking at rebuilt Greyhounds, rebuilt Vikings, or brand new and pricey Ospreys. I have my doubts that the Osprey has enough range, but I don't have any figures.
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