Nope, they are only used for very limited purpose. The Blue Angels/Fat Albert used them in their air show routine, they do a lot of stuff with Fat Albert that is outside what I would call normal ops. The 109th Airlift Wing in Schenectady, NY which runs the Antarctic research support mission does/did as well. Besides just the JATO takeoffs the 109th AW does a lot of training beyond what normal aircrews get. Arctic survival and celestial/grid navigation are two things which come to mind. For those who aren't familiar grid navigation is how you get around the polar regions..... For instance if you are at the south pole EVERY direction is North From what I have heard the inventory of JATO bottles has been almost depleted so they are now limited to the most essential missions. Last time I saw the Blue Angels (fall '12)they didn't do the JATO routine.
great airplane... if only their maintainance logs could talk... C-130 would come in for some TLC... their appearance / maintainance requests could be read like a newspaper about where they have been and the state of world affairs
You don't want a ride..... We sometimes do familiarization flights but you don't do fun stuff, just cruise around and make people miserable and airsick. I have hauled thousands of passengers (mostly Army) in the C-130 and while plenty of them are glad to have a ride out of wherever they might have been very few have enjoyed it. It's noisy, uncomfortable seats and is often either very hot or cold. As a passenger it's also a bit dull, even if are doing something cool, it's like riding in a car rather than driving a car. As a crew member it isn't too bad, flying tactical low level can be a lot of fun. Planning a route someplace and then going and doing it a 3-500' AGL. Other than maybe helicopters or A-10s I'm not sure who else does as much low level VFR flying.
Mark- Remember the aircrew calling me (the only fighter guy onboard) to the front of their C-130B during Desert Shield to show me the airpseed indicator at 320 KTAS, forget what the KIAS or KCAS was. Pretty impressive. Rode on C-130s all over Europe and SWA and, except for the passenger cooling/heating (never sure which it was), always enjoyed the rides. Always wore earplugs. Several trips from SWA to the UK and back in C-130s, mostly E models, except for the one B model ride. Rode on one from Mildenhall to Naples and back, a Navy contract run, with my family for a vacation. Daughter loved it at 7 years of age. Video does not show much maneuvering. There was actually a USAFE C-130 aerobatic team in the 60s or 70s.
There are a few pics of that acrobatic team up in my old squadron, some pretty impressive stuff. Top speed I have ever seen was 360 knots TAS, we were coming back from a mission in Iraq and had a pretty kicking tail wind. Figured we could make a personal ground speed record and got to that speed during an aggressive descent, it wasn't even that close to the barber pole which was kinda sad. The top ground speed I have seen was 463 knots when we caught a direct 160 knot tail wind over the northeastern US a few years back. Highest altitude I have been to is 34k...: that one took a little coordination as we aren't RVSM equipped. Fortunately there wasn't a lot of traffic and the controllers were able to block out some airspace for us. Normally the Herk would be a pig getting up to those altitudes but the plane we were in was going to depot and was stripped down of everything, just enough gas to get us where we were going. Obviously all these numbers are pale in comparison with nearly every other aircraft in the US inventory
Nope, and as far as I know nobody has purposefully performed one. One of my buddies came close when a pilot tried putting the props into reverse in flight. Plane was out of control for a bit but they managed to recover. There was also a Navy C-130 that had a life raft (under panel on the topside of the wing) come out in flight and wrap itself around the tail. They also did an out of control hurtling toward the ground approximation of a barrel roll if I understand it correctly.
Haha..... Remnds me of a story. The sextant port (up in the cockpit, 1.5 inch port in the top of the plane you can open anytime) is sometimes used to jettison stuff overboard. Letting a whole roll of toilet paper suck out the sextant port is always a favorite. It also will suck liquids out of bottles.... So this one day over Iraq these guys are carrying a two star general who had flown Herks at some point in the past. Standard procedure if you have a lot of pax in the back is to just piss in a bottle so you don't have to climb over everybody in the back. So the general relieves himself and then decided to empty the bottle out the sextant port. Now you gotta let the sextant port stay open for a few minutes to make sure there isn't anything that will come back. Apparently the General has forgotten this tidbit and snaps the port back shut way too soon and sprayed old man piss all over the place. We all had a good laugh at the crew when they came back with this story.
Mark- Your thrust/prop reversers worked without the squat switch being compressed? Had not heard of that. Not true for most aircraft with thrust reversers. Weight on wheels switch for you civilians.
My understanding was that most aircraft could go into reverse in flight. The C-17s do it as part of that crazy penetration descent profile, kick two into reverse and drop at 15k FPM. From what I understand airlines will deploy the thrust reversers just a few feet off the ground as well.
almost a requirement for stol aircraft... to minimize ground roll... putting a helio stallion with a PT-6 in reverse while there was air under the wheels was a lot of fun...could imitate a helicopter landing and make it stick...
..Harm landed a Herk on the Big E.. Ok,that's tv,but if memory serves,lol,a 130 did a cva,didn't it? But did it jato off? Or what... Cheers, RE
No JATO needed. Here's the full video: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfwJJD5jGXk]C-130 Hercules on an Aircraft Carrier!! - YouTube[/ame]
They did a couple dozen takeoffs and landings from the aircraft carrier if memory serves. The new C-130Js have way more power and would probably be even more capable of carrier ops. One of these days I will try and ask some J guys what their TOLD data looks like. By the book 130s require at least 3k feet for assault zone operations but there are waivers for shorter fields out there. Shortest I have been to was a 2800 feet and it was no problem from a ground roll standpoint. Biggest issue was the 50 foot trees just off the departure end.
It's been awhile... 10 years, maybe, but I read an accident report of a commuter pilot (don't remember the airline or plane... no luck trying to look it up) that routinely reversed the props on the twin-turboprop plane well before touch down. He would routinely come in hot reverse the props to get low and slow, then would cycle them to forward and land. Reverse again at touchdown. The pilot lives on as a statistic, as do his passengers, sadly. Didn't work one night. Included on the CVR was the FO asking him to stop doing it.
It's definitely not something to do outside of a well established flight profile. My understanding is that some airlines use it as a technique 5-10 feet AGL and it wouldn't surprise me if they are somehow integrated with a radar altimeter. What the C-17s do is for rapid descents from high altitude from what I understand. In any case it's always a bit scary when somebody has their own "special" technique they made up themselves.
Mark- Interesting. I just remember the landing on Tornados, where one of the landing pattern checks was to make sure the thrust reversers would not work inflight. That has to be one heck of descent in a C-17.
Yesterday went out to a spot in the mountains and coordinated with the guys flying Image Unavailable, Please Login
