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Thompson Files: Best military aircraft

The C-130 can pack a punch or lunch depending on its configuation.
by Loren B. Thompson
Arlington, Va. (UPI) Oct 5, 2007
The most successful aircraft in the history of military aviation isn't a supersonic fighter or a stealthy bomber: It is a propeller-driven cargo plane called the C-130 Hercules that has evolved into more variants than any other fixed-wing plane ever built.

The Hercules is so successful that in 2006 it became only the second aircraft of American origin to reach the half-century milestone of continuous operation by its home service, the Air Force. The only other plane that has achieved such longevity is the B-52 bomber. But whereas the B-52 ceased production 40 years ago, the Hercules looks likely to continue rolling off production lines for decades to come.

The newest version of the Hercules, dubbed Super Hercules, promises to extend the useful life of a famous airframe into the distant future. It is the story of a versatile, rugged, affordable plane that will ultimately surpass the record of all other aircraft in its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.

Those qualities have made the C-130 the most widely used military aircraft in the world, operated by more than 60 countries, including almost every major American ally. But this is also the story of how the C-130's remarkable durability has worked against it in the corridors of power, by allowing a distracted political system to delay fleet modernization until hundreds of planes were well beyond their intended service life.

The C-130 evolved from a simple cargo plane into a multi-role airframe that could accomplish aerial refueling, search and rescue, electronic jamming of enemy communications, airborne fire support, humanitarian assistance, hurricane assessment and even delivery of the largest conventional bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

The military requirement for the first C-130s emerged during the 1950-53 Korean War, when it became apparent that transports left over from World War II were not capable of satisfying emerging operational needs. The U.S. Army and Air Force sought a faster, more flexible cargo plane that could also be used for carrying troops and conducting aeromedical evacuations.

They chose a Lockheed design powered by four turboprop engines that gave the aircraft jet-like capabilities when compared with the piston-powered planes already in service. The ruggedly constructed airframe would be able to carry a 20-ton load over 1,000 miles, and then land on short, unimproved runways close to the fighting. The U.S. Air Force named the new aircraft Hercules, after the god in Greek mythology who was given a dozen seemingly impossible tasks to recover his honor.

That designation proved to be more prescient than anyone could have imagined, because within a few years after the first C-130As debuted in 1956, military planners began coming up with new uses for the airframe not envisioned in the original requirement.

In 1958 the U.S. Marine Corps began buying a tanker version to refuel its fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters in flight. The following year the Coast Guard adapted the plane to meet its search-and-rescue needs. In the 1960s the C-130 was modified to serve as a special-operations aircraft and gunship in Vietnam.

Dedicated variants were developed for many other military missions, including search and rescue, electronic warfare, airborne reconnaissance and maritime patrol. Meanwhile, civil users and overseas customers discovered that the C-130 airframe was adaptable to their own needs. Eventually, more than 2,000 C-130s were built in 40 different versions, and the plane remained in production continuously for six decades.

The longevity and popularity of Hercules was not due just to a good original design. Only about 200 of the initial C-130A configuration were built for the U.S. Air Force, and they were about as similar to today's C-130J as a 1956 Ford is to today's high-performance sedans.

The basic C-130 airframe was continuously improved as new technologies and missions emerged, most notably with the purchase of about 400 "E" variants for the Air Force in the 1960s and 300 "H" variants in the 1970s and 1980s. However, this pattern of continuous improvement was slowed by the depressed demand for new military systems that followed the collapse of communism, so the domestic fleet aged markedly before the latest "J" version appeared in the 1990s.

No other aircraft in the history of military aviation has delivered so much functionality to so many different users.

(Loren B. Thompson is CEO of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank that supports democracy and the free market.)

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Haifa, Israel (UPI) Oct 4, 2007
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