For post 130 here are some pictures of C-130s from my deployments to A-stan.  

good post

Which unit, what model and what's your job?
How come no C-130J's?

Thanks for the memories!

cool pics. thanks

Still doing EROs at Kandahar?  Bummer.

I was up there last year doing drops.  The last of the low levels...

Quoted: Which unit, what model and what's you job? How come no C-130J's?

Because the C-130GAY is of the devil!  Those are all Dyess birds, C-130H1s.  I'm a nav - thus my hate for the 130GAY.  When these pics were taken no US 130GAYs had deployed to theater yet.

For the record - the 130J is an incredible airplane.  It can do a lot of things the "classic" 130 can't, and do almost everything else better.  I would love to be assigned to a J squadron.  However, they do loose some critical capabilities with taking two crewmembers off the flight deck.  I have two flights on the J, and was involved in the Operational Test & Eval.

Excellent photos.  

First Navy C-130, 148318.
It was supposed to have been a Marine aircraft, but the Navy hijacked the first four from the Marines purchase in 1959 and made LC-130F's out of them.

In Navy talk they were UV-1L Hercules.
After the tri-services aircraft designation change it was called the C-130BL, then renamed the LC-130F.
It's the same thing as an Air Force C-130B.

This was the first C-130 to reach 10,000 flight hours, it did it in a little less than 8  years.



LC-130R 155197
This aircraft crashed a quarter mile from the approach end of the old South Pole skiway in 1973 and it stayed there.





In 1975 the new South Pole station was set to open, and both the Navy and NSF didn't want the crashed remains of the LC-130 near the new station.

The decision was made to move the remains via tractor to its present location as a radar marker about a mile upwind of the McMurdo end of the skiway.





After 30 years it has almost disapeared from sight, the blowing snow has almost covered it completly.


1977


1985


1998


2003

There is an ice tunnel that leads into the cockpit of the aircrft via the upper escape hatch.



It was a "touist" thing to take a snomobile out to the wreck and climb down into the flight station and check it out.

It's rumored that the NSF is going to fill in the ice tunnel because they are worried about the fuselage collapsing.



The Mishap:
The LC-130 was making a GCA approach, but the ice fog was thin enough that from above you could see right through it.

As the controller handed over landing to the pilot Marine Major Allen, the copilot said he had the skiway visually.

Major Allen looked up and saw nothing but fog. By the time he reacted (i.e., added power and rotated up to go around), he was too low and bashed the tail on the snow right at the ramp. The plane slammed down, wingtips and props hit the snow and came off.

The impact cracked open the fuselage at the paratroop doors, and the 500 gallon MOGAS bladder that was strapped to the ramp came loose, fell out, and was ignited by flames streaming from the broken wing tanks.

It burned a hole way down into the snow and was still steaming hours later.

The crew did everything right after landing: even though everyone piled out through every available orifice without delay (!), it was reported that all the power and and engine controls were off or safe as specified--although there wasn't much left to shut down.

The only thing still on when the cockpit was checked later was the Inertial Nav System, which was still trying to run on its battery.

Quoted: I'm a nav - thus my hate for the 130GAY.

A nav. Self loading baggage.  
I was a Loadmaster on Navy LC-130's.
So have you been ringed at the scope hood?  

any airplane that screws its way along is a good one.

Thanks for the pics, I always thought the C-130s were one of the better looking aircraft.