And wasn’t the Air Force resistant to purchasing C-130Js?
Cracks Prompt AF-wide C-130 Inspection
Air Force officials issued an immediate inspection notice Thursday to C-130 units worldwide after Robins Air Force Base, Ga., technicians found upper wing joint nut cracks in an aircraft undergoing scheduled depot maintenance.
The directive, known in the Air Force as a “time compliance technical order,” requires inspection and replacement of any cracked nuts before the next flight, said Roger Drinnon, a spokesman for Air Mobility Command. The command, headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., is the principal operator of the C-130 for the Air Force.
I seem to remember the Georgia delegation forcing C-130Js down the Air Force’s throat a couple years back while the service wanted to concentrate its procurement money on F-22s and C-17s. Maybe it was a sneaky ploy to “save” money in its budget knowing full well lawmakers would put the money in anyway, but it sure seemed to reinforce the notion that the Air Force is prejudiced against low-tech/high yield solutions like the Hercules and the Warthog (Fighting Falcon too?)…
As anyone who’s flown in the zone knows, the C-130 is by far the baddest assed plane out there. I can’t tell you how many high mountain passes I’ve buzzed and godforsaken gravel pit runways in the middle of nowhere I’ve taken off from in one of those beasts and never, ever, once felt nervous about the plane’s durability and safety.
What a great aircraft and I hope the Air Force recognizes the importance of the fleet and fixes the ones it’s got and buys more.
– Christian
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
As I recall, some of the complaints about the C-130J were because the plane was late, way over-priced, and nowhere near as good as the older planes that they were supposed to be replacing. Was I misinformed about that?
If you have ever been part of the Air Force community, you may have atl least once heard about Hercs surviving a flight with just one engine, and the rest dead. That beast is a tough one, and served the military for about half a century. There are many aged Hercs out there, and it’s no surprise with the aging wings.
Ed,
What program isn’t?
The “J” is still as awesome as its forbare…
As usual, the real heavy lifters (no pun intended) are scorned by the brass.
Anyway, it’s too bad we couldn’t combine an AC-130a and an A-10 by mounting two GAU-8s akimbo to the 105 and sending down a rain of ordinance and depleted uranium. Totally over the top but it would be one hell of a fun show. :)
BTW, the AC-130u uses a 105 and a single GAU-12. Not as powerful as my setup, but close enough. :O
Sorry, clearly I should have been more specific. I thought I remembered reading something that essentially sounded like the newest C-130′s were gold-plated airframes that were more difficult to maintain and much more expensive. I can understand the “less is more” argument for gold-plating platforms like the F-22, even if I don’t agree with it, but gold-plating cargo lifters seemed actively counterproductive to me. When it comes to hauling stuff, more is more.
However, looking over the usual places where I’d have read this, I can’t find any citations for it, and all the specs for the -J seem to meet or exceed the -H that it’s replacing, so I’m probably misremembering or mistook some Congressional tirade about reducing waste in military spending (as long as it’s not in my district) as fact.
I recently returned from a deployment and my first experience with Hercs (I’ve been on 141s and 17s until now). What a fantastic, tough old bird! They were all Es, Super Es and H2s, so pretty old and heavily used. When a J would come through (usually an Aussie one) we’d all dream of having more of them. I really wish I was back with those aircraft. And that’s from a maintainer point of view!
The last of the MC-130s Combat Talon IIIs were purchased in 1995.
The USAF Special Forces wants to start replacing those planes in 2010, 17 years after the last MC-130 was purchased.
See this Link:
The first C-17 was delivered for front line service in June 1993, and today is March 2009, almost 16 years later.
Arguably, the early production C-17 have been used as hard as the MC-130s because they were;
1) The logistical life line for our US Army peace keeping deployment in Bosnia during 1995,
2) The logistical life line for our the US Army Kosovo War deployment in 1999,
3) The logistical life line for Iraq & Afghanistan since 2001.
All three logistical deployments have seen the C-17 “used hard” landing on soft/short landing strips with heavy loads taking metal fatigue stresses siilar to repeated carrier landings type damage to those weak C-17 wing boxes.
We are 2-5 years away from needing to replace the 40 early production run C-17 transports and there is no identified USAF requirement, let alone budget, to buy more of them.
Given that history, it is no surprise that line C-130s are in the same shape.
This is why the US Army and USMC don’t see the US Air Force as being a team player in the global war on terrorism.
The USAF has had a decades old history of shorting it’s airlift resources for fighters:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/97-0265.pdf
THE USAF C-17 FLEET:
A STRATEGIC AIRLIFT SHORTFALL?
A Research Paper
Presented To
The Research Department
Air Command and Staff College
In Partial Fulfillment of the Graduation Requirements of ACSC
by
Maj. Randall L. Long
March 1997
The C-17 is a new aircraft with a 30,000-hour service life expectancy.12 Its
predecessor took 20 years to reach that figure. In 20 years there will not be 120 C-17s
left in the fleet. Peacetime mishaps are a fact of life that will claim a portion of those
aircraft. Although we will not establish an accurate mishap rate on the C-17 for several
years, we can project an approximate accident frequency based on C-5 and C-141 track
records. These aircraft are technologically different, but the missions are essentially the
same. And although we would like to be optimistic and say we will not lose any crews or
C-17s in the next 20 years, that is simply not realistic. By doing so, we place ourselves in
greater peril for a future contingency with too few assets to accomplish the mission.
Long-range airlift planners must settle on some number less than 120 aircraft when
forecasting scenarios 5, 10, or 20 years from now.
There was no sneaky plot. The problem was the J model itself, which had a lot of early problems (supposedly corrected now), and was way over budget, which limited the number of airframes the AF could purchase. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Trent Telenko: WTFO?
The paper you cited was written WAAAAY back when the AF had plans for 120 C-17s (pre-9/11 & WOT). They have now bought 174 to-date. They would have had even more except the DoD and Congress denied them the opportunity to buy more. If there aren’t any more C-17s blame DoD or weak-sister Congressfolk – Not the AF.
The paper you cited carefully focused on the value of the C-17 as a strategic airlifter and NOT as an intra-theater asset. Intra-theater is where the C-130, a plane that should make anyone’s top 10 list of all time great planes, really shines.
The C-130 wing-box issue has been coming for a long time – and this isn’t even the first go around for wing refits. The AF (and Warner Robins ALC) has been busting their a**es to keep ahead of the game and keep the birds they’ve got flying.
Want more C-130s? Hey, so does the AF! The AF has 69 newer Js “with orders for approximately 111 more aircraft” as of January 2009. They would have had them sooner except, as others noted, there were birthing pains.
I guess “This is why the US Army and USMC don’t see the US Air Force as being a team player in the global war on terrorism” doesn’t really apply then [;-)? (I mean, ASSUMING one accepted the scurrilous implication that the ONLY useful role of the AF was hauling Army and Marine heinies around the Turd World in the first place.)