The Air Force Special Ops Receives Its First C-130J Combat Shadow II

Ha, ha, ha! Those knuckleheads at Gizmodo are at it again! From the article:

The Combat Shadow II is lighter and more powerful than earlier C-130s. It has five turboprops...

Five? Really? So, where do they keep that 5th turboprop? Does it pop-up out of the fuselage when they need extra power?

Spare parts bin, of course.

I really enjoyed the clip one for the commenters put on giz from Captain Picard. Anyway, I really like this plane. I've seen a c130 use JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) in person and it was very cool. I used to see these planes fly over my parents house all the time as they are near a national guard base.

Here's a link to a c130 using JATO in the Antarctic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFL1rk2Fzpg&feature=related

They are referring to the 5 blade props, not the number of engines. The 5 bladed prop began on the C-130J models. I should know; my son is a C-130 tech.

5 ≠ 6

I count 6 blades.

(Image from Wikipedia.)

Reckon its Special Ops propaganda - the foes will all be saving the RPGs, SAMs etc. for planes with 5 props, and ignoring the 4-prop models.

It was a typo. They admitted it. Do none of YOUR pencils have erasers?

Gizmo is at it, as and the writer can't get the facts correct....

Not 5 Turboprops engines, but rather there are 4 of them! Geeezzzzzz!

Asides, I've always loved this aircraft, the "HerkyBird". I grew up within 3 miles of a NYANG base that had C-130's since the mid-1970's. Before that they flew KC-97 tankers. The base of course is the Sen. Samuel S. Stratton New York Air National Guard Base, located in the Town of Glenville at the Schenectady County Airport outside Schenectady NY....the unit is the 109th Airlift Wing which now operates LC-130H Hercules "SkiBirds", and is the only US Military unit to fly them (the US Navy retired theirs). They're used to supply the USAF radar installations on Greenland, and the NSF on Antarctica. Pretty kewl plane!

Anyhow, I've been on HerkyBirds a whole bunch of times while in the US Army......way too many times to count or remember. I can attest to the fine engineering quality that Lockheed put into this aircraft!

Also, being a passenger in one when the 8 JATO bottles are lit is a real kick in the pants!

Rangers Lead the Way!

The fifth one is cleverly hidden in the nose of the aircraft, and it's also invisible, so it doesn't interfere with the driver's view.

lyn, that's the Stealth turboprop engine for Spec Op Herky! LOL

I was an IE tech on herks of and on for 20 years.

The C-130 is not all that great an aircraft...it breaks just like any other over engineered piece of aluminum. It requires more maintenance than most civilian planes, but that is partly because the militaries push it outside its design envelope pretty regularly. However, it would be hard to find a more versatile one. Economies of scale have made it affordable to a LOT of buyers, so it get used a LOT, for a LOT of applications. Mostly military, since it really does burn too much fuel to be useful as a civilian heavy lifter.

Not bad for an aircraft that was on the drawing board before most engineers were even born. The Canadians seem to drive the Herks longer than most, and I guess as long as they replace the components in the life cycle management system that they use, there is no real upper limit.

"Jay" model hmmm? Who would have thought!

I can't speak for whether or not the C-130 is a great aircraft as the word 'great' is ambiguous. But I agree with you regarding it's versatility and popularity. Which is a good thing for me as I work for a company that designs and manufactures a lot of C-130 flight simulators and training devices.

Much of the design documentation we developed our simulators from are from the 1950's. The performance graphs are hand drawn. It's quite interesting to see.

The herk's strength is that the parts are everywhere and easily changed. Its hydraulic systems are easy to access (by and large) and electrical equipment is fairly easy to fault find and replace or repair as needed. Its weakness is that its design is so old... from the alloys used in the skin to the insulation in the wiring to the impossible access behind the instrument clusters, the general concensus is that it works so don't mess with it. Its extensive and heavy rapair manuals make enough weight that they have to be brought into account during a "weight and balance" survey. I try to not let nostalgia and "old man" conservatism stand in the way of real technological advancements. Fortunately this view has mostly prevailed....I suspect that the Jay model Herk would be unrecognizable inside to an old Eee model tech like myself. I think the best thing that can be said for this airframe is that the kinks have all been worked out of it. Mostly.

Oh well, as long as the job it is expected to do does not change, why change the airframe? After all, they are flying DC3 tail draggers out of Yellowknife!
Still!

C-130's in the news

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111005/us_ac/9828083_air_force_returns_to_attack_texas_wildfires

This time helping with the fires in Texas

I must apoligize for my ignorance. The turboprops on the C-130J's do indeed have 6 blades, not 5. I checked with my son and he confirmed my mistake. Makes me feel like a fool.