S-3 Viking, US-3 Viking COD, and ES-3 Shadow

[chrisonord]

I think I will do a search for an s-3 now, and give it the "AND WHY NOT???" treatment. My Navy and Marines aircraft don't have a dedicated Tanker aircraft, they would have if my KA-6 tanker hadn't gone the same way as my s-3's. So I might do a tanker version and if I can get 2 for the right price make a "specialist" version.

[Green Dragon]

Hi Chris and Jeff, Airfix did an S-3 kit quite a while ago. I had the original release back in the 70's but the fuselage was short shot and badly warped so it got bashed with an A-10, Ju87 and varius other kits. It came out about the same time as the Hasegawa kit, IIRC both were reviewed in the same issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling.
I wish Airfix would repop it as it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than todays Hasegawa release.

Paul Harrison

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the information on the Airfix S-3 kit.  I had no idea or completely forgot about Airfix offering an S-3, guess that was from a time when I was not paying attention to what was available in the modern aircraft category.  What was offered in the kit?  Was there any weapons bays and weapons?  How about the MAD boom, was it retractable? Actually if you know of an in-box kit review on-line just provide the link for it and that will answer all of the questions.

[Green Dragon]

Hi Jeff

Far as I can remember you got four Torpedoes for the weapons bay and a choice of Drop Tanks or Harpoons for the wing pylons, Mad Boom was retractable IIRC. I seem to remember the tail surfaces were hinged but it was a loooong time ago!

Paul Harrison

[kitnut617]

I had read on another forum that the Airfix S-3A was quite a nice kit so not very long ago I got one and it just happens to be on hand.  Novelties in the kit include extending MAD boom and fan & turbine blades which turn (or spin if you're clever enough).  It has a weapons bay and wheel bays and the weapons are two Harpoons and four torpedoes plus two drop tanks.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Robert,

Thanks for posting the images.  Now that I have seen the box art it does bring back a memory of seeing that on the shelf.  Surprised that I had forgot about the Airfix kit.  Looks like it has all of the same bells and whistles of the more expensive Hasegawa kit with that added bonus feature of spinning fan blades if you are clever enough to make them work. 

[kitnut617]

Hi Jeffry,

The front fan and the turbine blades get glued to a shaft (sort of how a real engine is) and I think the trick will be to make sure they are glued on exactly square as the shaft then gets positioned into a groove moulded inside the nacelle halves.  This also prevents the shaft moving back and forth in the nacelle so if the blade parts aren't glued exactly they won't turn.  Fitting the duct around the front fan looks like it might get tricky as without cutting all the bits off I can't see how it glues onto the rest of the nacelle.

Otherwise it is a nice little kit and I don't know why I never bought one years ago to find out.  So what is the difference between a S-3A and the S-3B ?

[Jeffry Fontaine]

The front fan and the turbine blades get glued to a shaft (sort of how a real engine is) and I think the trick will be to make sure they are glued on exactly square as the shaft then gets positioned into a groove moulded inside the nacelle halves.  This also prevents the shaft moving back and forth in the nacelle so if the blade parts aren't glued exactly they won't turn.  Fitting the duct around the front fan looks like it might get tricky as without cutting all the bits off I can't see how it glues onto the rest of the nacelle.

That reminds me of the 1/48th scale Airfix Harrier and Sea Harrier kits with the separate fan blade that fit inside the cavity created by the air intake, it too could have been made to spin or rotate with minimal modification, not that there was much to see behind the blades save for the inside of the model but it was certainly an option. 

Otherwise it is a nice little kit and I don't know why I never bought one years ago to find out.  So what is the difference between a S-3A and the S-3B ?

(Greg goebel's "Air Vectors") page on the Lockheed S-3 Viking has a good description and history of the aircraft and mentions the differences between the two versions in the following comments from that page:

In 1981, the US Navy awarded Lockheed a contract for a "Weapon Systems Improvement Program (WSIP)" to upgrade the combat avionics and weapons carriage capabilities of existing S-3As. Two initial WSIP "S-3B" conversions were used for flight evaluations, with initial flight of the first conversion on 13 September 1984. Formal conversions began in early 1987, with initial service redelivery of an upgraded machine in December of that year. A total of 119 conversions was performed in all, with the last reaching service in 1994. The S-3B retained the airframe and engines of the S-3A, and the two variants appear almost identical externally. Changes included:

• The AN/APS-137(V)1 radar, the AN/ALR-76 ESM receiver, and TI OR-263 FLIR also fitted to the ES-3A Shadow.


• An improved AN/ARR-78 sonobuoy receiver system; an AN/UYS-1 Proteus acoustic signal processor; a "Joint Tactical Information Datalink System (JTIDS)"; and two AN/ALE-39 chaff-flare dispensers, one on each side of the rear lower fuselage, with a load of 30 cartridges each.


• Support of the McDonnell Douglas AGM-84A Harpoon antiship cruise missile. The radar system was also enhanced to provide targeting for the Harpoon. Carriage of the Harpoon had actually been trialed on an S-3A in 1975, but limited resources prevented full qualification at the time. A few S-3Bs were later modified to carry the AGM-65F Maverick air-to-surface missile, with the missile fitted with an imaging infrared seeker for antiship attack.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

im not sure if this is an actual project or a reaslly well done kitbash ? ...

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/photos/photopage.jsp?plckPhotoID=4b32cd52-99f9-40ed-8a35-704da1954a9e&plckGalleryID=b1746a72-fce6-489c-9afe-50a1413a668b

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,7931.0/topicseen.html

cheers, joe

After posting this to the V-22 and E-2 topics I got to thinking (yep, dangerous) about the S-3 Viking maybe benefiting from a kit-bashing such as this to create a COD bird with a real ramp at the rear of the fuselage.  I wonder how that would look using the S-3 wings with the V-22 fuselage?  Or even more radical would be the V-22 wing mated to the S-3 fuselage to create a SV-3.  



(image source: Bruno Bec/aviationweek.com)

Another one of those WHIF ideas that could be done in 1/72nd scale or 1/48th scale depending on kit availability and your modeling budget.  

[Stargazer]

I was looking at pictures of an S3 Viking and thinking that's one short little bugger. There has to be a lot of stretch potential in there, but even though it's been chopped and modded various times they don't seem to have ever lengthened it.

After trying a couple of regular things, I came up with that silly notion of doing just that... stretching the plane... literally. Taking the picture and resizing 150% x 100% to see what happened. And I was surprised to find that the squat little bugger suddenly looks almost graceful... Indeed, it makes it look like a Douglas Skywarrior of sorts!

[Amphion]

Looking through old mags before discarding I notised this picture. I seem to remember a discusion about the E-X proposal, but I can't find it again so I thought I post it here:

[GTX]

I wish I could find a decent 3-view drawing of those concepts.

Regards,

Greg

[GTX]

VSTOL (There was a proposal to test podded pegasus on it)

Interesting - does anyone have any info on this proposal?  The concept of a VTOL Viking is intriguing.

Regards,

Greg

[Chris707]

Lockheed actually did propose a dedicated COD variant of the Viking, not just the US-3 conversions - details escape me, but it would have been longer (new fuselage altogether?) there was also mention of the type's suitability for use as a Missileer with appropriate radar and AIM-54s, but that of course was more of a long shot type of thing...

Chris
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http://www.dataviewbooks.com/beast.html

[Rafael]

Looking through old mags before discarding I notised this picture. I seem to remember a discusion about the E-X proposal, but I can't find it again so I thought I post it here:

Not finished yet
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,23223.0.html
Rafa