Aging Aircraft Star in Tsunami Aid Effort

I love the C-130--- Cheap as military planes go and will land almost anywhere.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Tsunami-Aerial-Workhorses.html

Aging Aircraft Star in Tsunami Aid Effort
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 8:00 a.m. ET

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) -- With a combined age of 72, the Hercules transport plane and the Seahawk helicopter don't have the sleek, space-age lines of their newer, higher-tech brethren. But these veterans are the stars of the aerial relief operation in Indonesia.

The C-130 Hercules, flying the flags of a dozen nations here, has been hauling critically needed food, water and medicine from Asian points and beyond into Banda Aceh airport, which has been transformed from a sleepy provincial airstrip into an international aid hub.

A few hundred yards away, on a soccer field mired in monsoon mud, U.S. Navy Seahawks, their blades clattering, take on cartons of these supplies and rush them down the Sumatran coast to survivors of the tsunami disaster

..more at AP.....

like they use to.

Good to see our resources being put to good use helping people. This is what it's all about.

Are they still outfitting these with belly armor and guns as a low level tank killer? I heard they did this a little while ago,b ut haven't heard anything since.

I was stationed in France in 1959. The Air Force deployed its socalled Strike AirForce to Europe. Our base was full of Herky Birds, in from the States. I worked in Wing Headquarters and could see part of the flight line from my office. An F100 overshot his assigned parking spot by a few feet. The pilot just reversed the props and backed it up. He could have parallel park the bird. I saw one make a practice emergency takeoff. There is a lot of helicopter blood in a Herky Bird. They've been in the AirForce inventory since 1954. If I were to come back alive in the year 2054, I figure I would find them still in the inventory.

For more on th C-130 see:
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-130.htm

From its Maker (C-130)
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11165&rsbci=0&fti=126&ti=0&sc=400

For more on the GUNSHIP version of the C-130 (The AC-130):
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ac-130.htm

And it's being protested heavily.

so while they are "cutting" C-130 they are increasing C-17... It really is a win win for the ppl that make the planes.

It's relatively simple, too. Did you know that the original specification was a grand total of 52 pages?

And furthermore, I'd like to see the C-17 do some of the things that the Herc has done, such as get outfitted with skis, or be able to be dug out of 35 feet of snow in the Antarctic and fly again.

They even flew one on and off an aircraft carrier, just to see if it could be done. It could.

What an airplane.

Redstone

I would like to see a C-17 do that.

And this is from the US Air Force Site:

C-130 unit Cost: $48.5 Million Dollar s(1998 Dollars)
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=92

C-17 Unit Costs: $202.3 Million Dollars (1998 Dollars)
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=86

Please note these are "Unit Costs" does not include developmental costs etc, just to cost to buy one additional plane.

C-130 Max Cargo Load: 44,000 pounds. C-17 Max Cargo:170,900 pounds.

Thus the C-17 can carry 4 times the Cargo at four times the price.

airplanes ever built.....

the "herky-bird" has a reputation much like the old C-47 (DC-3). And wilkl probably go down in history as one of the best planes ever built.....

The DC-3, the Classic Commercial Aviation Plane, cargo load 4500, Range 1495,
Total Produced: 455 DC-3 commercial transports built for the airlines and
10,174 Built for the Military. (In 1998 over 500 were still in use worldwide)
Landing Field: 16,400 feet.

Cost in 1935: $79,500 ($947,117.17 in 1998 Dollars)
(Another Reference gives $138,000 but no date for that price so can not be adjusted to 1998 prices, base price used in my above cites for price for C-130 and C-17).

For more on the DC-3

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Aerospace/DC-3/Aero29.htm

http://www.dc3history.org/dc3.htm

http://www.boeing.com/history/mdc/dc-3.htm

http://www.douglasdc3.com/dc3specs/dc3specs.htm

http://www.dc3airways.com/entry.html

http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=188

http://www.airlinehistorymuseum.com/dc-3.htm

For a calculator to adjust Dollars from one year to another see one of these sites:
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/inflateCPI.html