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Aircraft commander, has urged the UK Ministry of Defence to reconsider the early retirement of the C-130J Hercules fleet.

Colin Parkinson

Colin Parkinson

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Typical UK MND, cut deeply regret later. perhaps if they continue with this, we might pick up a couple more?


ukdefencejournal.org.uk

UK should ‘reconsider’ plans to scrap C-130

Andy Netherwood, a former C-130 and C-17 aircraft commander, has urged the Ministry of Defence to reconsider the early retirement of the C-130J Hercules fleet.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk ukdefencejournal.org.uk

slight staff edit to make the threat title stand out more as Brit
 
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Meanwhile, Harrier be like

Angry American Idol GIF
 
OldSolduer said:
So would I. Technical explanation needed
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They’re supposed to be good for ~40,000 hours, but they use ‘equivalent flight hours’. Hard turns, turbulence, flying with the ramp open theoretically are harder on the airplane, Lockmart kinda keeps it a big secret. They just spit out a report based on some g-meters in the plane that just says ‘you used X equivalent flight hours in this timeframe.’ I don’t remember what the timeframe is, 6 months or a year I think.
 
kev994 said:
They’re supposed to be good for ~40,000 hours, but they use ‘equivalent flight hours’. Hard turns, turbulence, flying with the ramp open theoretically are harder on the airplane, Lockmart kinda keeps it a big secret. They just spit out a report based on some g-meters in the plane that just says ‘you used X equivalent flight hours in this timeframe.’ I don’t remember what the timeframe is, 6 months or a year I think.
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Understood. Stressing the airframe is not a good thing but sometimes necessary.
 
Broader question, but are purpose built military aircraft like the C-17 or C-130J built with additional airframe stress built into the design? (I would think so?)

It’s not uncommon for military aircraft to be turning hard, operating low level, have ramps & doors open, etc
 
How many hours on them, how many hard landings, have the Brits been part of the user community and maintained them in lockstep with other nations or are they RAF specific / RAF modifications, and where are the pilots and maintainers coming from?
 
dapaterson said:
How many hours on them, how many hard landings, have the Brits been part of the user community and maintained them in lockstep with other nations or are they RAF specific / RAF modifications, and where are the pilots and maintainers coming from?
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We used and abused them alot.

Based on what we did to them, I'd just kind of leave them on the kerb with a 'Free' sign on them... but whatever ;)
 
You think that countries would slowly replace the fleet with new ones, selling the older ones while they still have usable hours on them to other countries?
 
Colin Parkinson said:
You think that countries would slowly replace the fleet with new ones, selling the older ones while they still have usable hours on them to other countries?
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They apparently have new centre wing boxes, that’s the major structural component. But I’ve heard that they’re Block 6, we’re in block 7 and most users (including us) are moving to block 8, the costs to switch are pretty substantial and when doing simulator training you need to do it on the right version.
 
kev994 said:
They apparently have new centre wing boxes, that’s the major structural component. But I’ve heard that they’re Block 6, we’re in block 7 and most users (including us) are moving to block 8, the costs to switch are pretty substantial and when doing simulator training you need to do it on the right version.
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I thought we’re 8.1 now?
 
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