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Us Navy Carrier Based Hercules Record Still Stands
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During its nearly four-decade career around the world, Lockheed’s rugged C-130 Hercules transport has chalked up some incredible flights – the Entebbe rescue of 104 hostages in 1976, live pickups from land and sea and the intrepid rescue of six scientists in Antarctica – but one of the most daring chapters in the plane’s history occurred when the US Navy decided to land one of the big propjets on an aircraft carrier.
The late 1963 mission, involving the USS Forrestal in the North Atlantic, was a ‘first’ for a four-engine aircraft. It was a world record feat as the heaviest aircraft ever to land and take off from an aircraft carrier, a record that is believed to still stand on this, the 75th year of US Naval aviation.
When the project was proposed, there was a bit of scoffing in aviation circles: How could the big propjet with its bulky fuselage and 40. 2-metre wingspan land on the deck of a carrier? Even the project pilot selected for the mission, Navy fighter pilot Lt. James Flatley Ill (now a rear admiral, assigned to the Navy’s Office of Naval Warfare in the Pentagon), when first told of the assignment, thought perhaps someone was pulling his leg.
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But they weren’t kidding. In fact, the Chief of Naval Operations himself had ordered the feasibility study. The Navy was trying to find out whether it could use the Hercules as a sort of ‘super COD’ (a ·carrier onboard delivery aircraft) to transport supplies to their carrier battle groups.
The aircraft selected for the mission, a Marine KC-130F, received only a few minor Lockheed modifications – mainly the installation of an improved anti-skid braking system, a smaller nose landing gear orifice and the removal of external refuelling pods from the wings.
As retired Lockheed Engineering vice President Arthur Flock recalled, “The sea was pretty big that day. I was on the captain’s bridge. I watched a man on the ship’s bow and that bow must have gone up and down 9 metres”. The ship’s speed was increased by 10 knots to reduce yaw motion.
“The big worry,” Flatley said, “was whether we could stay under the maximum sink rate of 2. 7 metres per second. ” As it turned out, the Navy was amazed to discover that the Hercules, thanks to its low-speed controllability due to its propjet engines and prop pitch reversibility, was able to better the max sink rate by a substantial margin, reaching only 1. 5 to 1. 8 metres per second. The initial seaborne landings, on October 30, 1963, werf! Made into a 40 knot wind. Altogether, Lt. Flatley and his crew negotiated 29 touch-and-go landings, 21 unarrested full-stop landings and 21 unassisted takeoffs at gross weights of 38,556 kilograms up to 54,886 kilograms.
At 38,556 kilograms, the C-130 came to a stop in 81 metres, about twice the plane’s wingspan. The Navy was delighted that even with the heaviest load, the plane used only 227 metres for takeoff. One 49,442 kilogram gross weight landing made during a rain squall required a landing roll of only 140 metres.
The plane’s right wing tip cleared the Forrestal’s ‘island’ flight deck control tower by just under 4. 5 metres as the plane roared down the deck on a specially painted line.
From the test data, the Navy concluded that with the Hercules, it could lift 11,340 kilograms of cargo and personnel 2,200nm and land on a carrier. Even so, the plan was considered a bit too risky for the big project and the Navy elected to use a smaller COD aircraft. For his superb airmanship, Lt. Flatley received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
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