EP-3 replacement?

Andrew Toppan wrote in message . ..
On 26 Nov 2003 20:20:54 -0800, (s.p.i.) wrote:

One small quibble, the C-135 never was a civil platform.

But it's darn close to the C-137/E-3/E-6/E-8/707, which certainly is...

The basic 707 was the progeny of the Dash-80 as well. I will give you
that. However the differences between the 707 and C-135 are so
significant you can't really consider them the same airplane. That's a
trivial quibble so don'yt get locked up on it Andrew.
Whats getting missed here is the fact that the 707 and C-135 are much
closer to the B-17 in terms of toughness than the 767 is (and the G-V
and EMB-145 for that matter). Putting the newer civil designs as faux
warbirds in Harm's Way is a recipe for disaster down the road. They
are simply not your Granddaddy's civil designs.
Now that the MANPAD threat is really real, things may well change
since it now makes commercial sense to make large civil transports at
least somewhat surviviable to battle damage. Good thing that was a
Jurrasic 'bus that took the hit. Confronted with a big piece of wing
missing, I very much the notoriously enigmatic flight logic in the
newer ones would have performed very well with a quarter of the wing
gone.
I get the impression the the surviviability coommunity has languished
on the back burner for way too long. Maybe their discipline will get
the focus it so sorely deserves: http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/aircraft/
But as far as the ACS goes. The problem of the lack of organic ISR
aboard carriers is well recognized.
• Precise, persistent ISR from a mix of space and
airborne systems is a must:
– Future airborne ISR will consist of a mix of manned (e.g.,
JSTARS) and unmanned systems
– Manned ISR systems will be predominantly land-based and will
reach the battlefield using airborne refueling
– Today's unmanned ISR systems are a combination of short (e.g.,
Predator) and long (e.g., Global Hawk) range systems.
– If the Navy is to provoke strike capability with minimal land-based
support, it will need sea-based ISR Unmanned Air Vehicle
(UAVs).

This really is worth the effort to open and actually read:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/acof.pdf
If the EMB-145 is picked, the navy will be saddled with a short legged
fragile platform that, surviviability issues aside, will be a burden
for both the tankers and maintenance. At least with the G-450 it will
be a fragile platform with some modicum of legs.