Lockheed CC-130E Hercules military transport airplane

Backgrounder

Summary

Although designed in the early 1950s, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules remains one of the most successful military transport airplanes ever designed. Operated in every region of the globe, this flying truck has consistently shown itself to be extremely durable, reliable, and tough. The Royal Canadian Air Force received its first Hercules in the fall of 1960. Improved versions were ordered as time went by. A new batch was in fact delivered in 2010-12 and will remain in service for years to come. The Hercules offered to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum is the oldest Canadian example of the type. It entered service in 1965 and was used as a transport airplane, a navigation training airplane, and a search and rescue airplane.

Historical importance / Canadian context

The Hercules offered to the Museum (manufacturer number 382-4041) is the third CC-130E – and the seventh CC-130 – acquired by the Canadian military. Taken on strength on February 9, 1965, the airplane received the RCAF serial number 10307 (130307 from May 1970 onward). It flew with 435 Squadron, a unit based at RCAF Station Namao (Alberta).

After approximately ten years spent at Namao, the Hercules was converted to serve as a navigation training airplane, with the designation CC-130N/NT or Nav-Herc. It was transferred to 429 Squadron, Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Winnipeg, and was drawn upon by the Canadian Forces Air Navigation School. It was one of four Hercules so modified to train navigators who would go on to serve primarily in transport, maritime fixed wing and maritime rotary wing aircraft. The CC-130 N/NT aircraft would carry removable pallet-mounted training consoles made by Northwest Industries of Edmonton. Each training console could accommodate two students as well as a supervising instructor.

With the introduction of a dedicated navigation training airplane in 1991, the Hercules offered to the Museum was transferred to 429 Squadron, a transport unit based at CFB Winnipeg. In 1993, it was converted into a search and rescue airplane, a version known informally as the CC-130E(SAR). The airplane went to 424 Squadron, a unit based at CFB Trenton (Ontario).

This Hercules is the last of the CC-130Es and the oldest Hercules still flying in Canada. There is a CC-130E Hercules (serial number 130314), very similar to the one offered to the Museum, at the National Air Force Museum of Canada, in Trenton.

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