F-111 fleet flies into safety doubts

"L'acrobat" wrote in message
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"The CO" wrote in message
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"L'acrobat" wrote in message
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The AP-3C Orions are due to retire around 2025, you would expect
Global Hawk
(or follow ons) to start supplimenting them by around 2015/2020 if
they were
to replace them by 2025

I'll be interested to see what is going to replace the P3's. More
P3's
or will they look at
Nimrod again? Getting the TAP3's to keep the hours down on the
operational fleet seems
to have been a very good idea.

They seem keen on at least partially replacing them with UAVs

That would make sense for the surveillance role.
There could be huge savings over the present setup assuming the quality
of surveillance
can be matched by the UAVs.
That leaves the ASW/Maritime strike component. Smaller quantity of
replacements,
ie new Orions or Nimrod?
I'm aware of UAVs being fitted for air/ground strike (on a small scale)
but I don't recall
any attempt at an ASW UAV being made. Given the complexity of systems
like Global
Hawk I suppose it would be possible, but I'm less sure it would be an
economic proposition
compared to more conventional methods.


The CO