Actually, what you are referring to is called a 'Wet Wing tanker' like the
old KA-6 that could fly with the strike package. S-3B do indeed mission
tank on a regular basis, usually at a fixed point in space or 'dragging' the
fighters toward an objective but never once the strike package has begun
their route.

"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
ink.net...
Charlie Wolf wrote:
On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 04:50:21 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

R. David Steele wrote:
snipped...
The S-3 is even slower than the EA-6. That's why they weren't able
to use the S-3 as a mission tanker for strike fighters like the
F/A-18.
Where did you get that from? S-3's have been tanking Lawn Darts since
the RAG stood up at Cecil Field in the early 90's. S-3 has a dash
speed of 450 kts. It can easily do 400 kts straight and level. That
is way above tanking speed.

Right. That's why I said *mission* tanker. AIUI, the S-3 was fine for
tanking around the carrier, but did not have the speed to keep pace with a
strike package en-route to the target area.

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