“C-130 rolling down the strip
Airborne ranger going to take a little trip.
Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door,
Jump right out and count to four.”
>>Special operators have been singing that song for half a century. What an airplane!<<
I’m in LOOOOOVE...!!
Does it have the 30 MM cannon like the A-10?
Still the best, most versatile theater transport in the world. It would be interesting if they deleted the Hellfires and integrated Tomahawk but I guess that would give some other countries verification issues.
Some aircraft are just perfect. The C-130, the C-47, Boeing 737, Bell Jet Ranger, Chinook, etc.
They came off the paper so well-designed that only minor changes keep them current.
Is what we dreaded ever seeing on a P-3 back in the day. Missions were long enough - refueling us on station would have been a killer.
I could see it working usefully with F-35 and F-22 fighters, as a “missile truck”.
Load it up with long-range armament, have fighters way ahead of it designate targets, and the C-130 sends missiles out to the targets, while the C-130 hangs back out of range of enemy anti-air.
I’ve always loved the Hercules.
Seems more like a stripped down AC-130 to me...
And there won’t be any aerial resupplies with a 30mm cannon on the ramp...
With the addition of the Marine Corps’ ISR / Weapon Mission Kit, the KC-130J is able to serve as an over watch aircraft and can deliver ground support fire in the form of Hellfire or Griffin missiles, precision-guided bombs, and eventually 30mm cannon fire in a later upgrade. This capability, designated as “Harvest HAWK” (Hercules Airborne Weapons Kit), can be used in scenarios where precision is not a requisite, such as area denial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvest_Hawk_KC-130J_with_Hellfire.jpg
The C-130 may well go down in history as the finest airplane ever built.
