A member of 8 (Air Maintenance) Squadron, 8 Wing Trenton, ON proudly flies the 8 AMS flag as CC-130 Hercules #319 taxis along Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan for its final flight.
Credit: Cpl Tina Gillies.
Posted on 05/21/2011 5:29:00 AM PDT by Clive
It was an historic day on April 25 as the last Canadian H-model CC-130 Hercules in Afghanistan performed its final flight.
Amid smiles and cheers from members of the Joint Task Force Afghanistan Air Wing (Task Force Silver Dart), the oldest of the Afghanistan workhorses, tail number 319, taxied down the runway at Kandahar Airfield for one last flight.
Operational to the end, the flight was tasked by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to fly from Kabul to Kandahar with a stop in between.
Captain Neil Prescott was the aircraft commander and says the flight brought back a lot of memories.
“The legacy model Hercules have been in this theatre since 2002 and I’ve flown [it] quite extensively all over Afghanistan – to austere airfields hauling all kinds of cargo and personnel, runs to and from Camp Mirage.
“It’s the end of an era for these aircraft and now we’re passing the baton to the J-model Hercules.”
Colonel Al Meinzinger, commander of Task Force Silver Dart, says the fact the H-model Hercules were able to fly as long as they did in Afghanistan is due to the professionalism of the aircraft technicians who kept them flying.
“We get a little sentimental at times, but the aircraft is nothing without the entire team and I think in this case we need to tip our hats to the technicians in the CC-130 community who have done such an admirable job for so many years.”
Task Force Canuck, the Tactical Aviation Unit that flies the Hercs in Afghanistan and is part of the Air Wing, has flown more than 400 missions, moved well over two million pounds of cargo and flown more than 25,000 passengers within Afghanistan. Aircraft number 319 has conducted many of those missions and, since it first came into service in the 1960s, has racked up more than 44,000 hours.
Col Meinzinger has even more reason to be proud of the aircraft’s accomplishments – beyond his being commander of TF Silver Dart. His father was a loadmaster on the Hercules in the 1970s. “In checking his logbook he told me that he flew this airframe between 1977 and 1980.”
Aircraft 319 arrived in Trenton to 436 (Transport) Squadron for maintenance and will soon be flying again on search and rescue missions.
The crew, comprised of Capt Prescott, first officer Captain Roberto Sanchez-Solowan, air combat systems officer Captain Whitney Camm, flight engineer Sergeant Anthony Norris and two loadmasters Master Corporal Jason Arsenault and Master-Corporal Jason Misner arrived with a feeling of intense pride and camaraderie. The crew flew its entire four-month rotation on aircraft 319, which had been in the Middle East for nearly a year before finally making the long journey home.
“Seeing it taxi in to the Trenton ramp on Sunday was a moment of pride for all those who had flown and serviced that durable aircraft,” says Captain Lianne Anderson of 436 (T) Sqn who witnessed the arrival.
A member of 8 (Air Maintenance) Squadron, 8 Wing Trenton, ON proudly flies the 8 AMS flag as CC-130 Hercules #319 taxis along Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan for its final flight.
Credit: Cpl Tina Gillies.
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From a really old geezer- I have been up in “B” models many years ago.
Cool. I worked on H3’s in my unit, and on B models on iraq deployment. One in particular had been mortared in Da Nang in the same year I was born ... 1964
Can C-130s be flown home (trans-ocean flights) or are they strapped to a ship? I always wonder about this.
With external fuel tanks and aerial refueling, they fly. Kinda defeats the purpose of an air transport, to strap it on a ship to get it across the pond.
I agree with that. I’ve always been interested in how aircraft get to delivered to overseas theaters of operations. In WWII, I believe we ferried four-engine aircraft across the North Atlantic to the European theater, but I don’t believe we did that with twin-engine or smaller. I’ve never been able to find much information on this.
My first flying instructor was one of those women pilots.
Wow. Given the reliability of piston technology, it must have been sobering for those pilots to head out over the North Atlantic with one prop to keep them going!
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