C-130 Hercules. Gunship, cargo transport, search, and rescue. One of Kelly Johnson's few lapses of judgment

[Dronescapes]

C-130 Hercules. Gunship, cargo transport, search, and rescue. One of Kelly Johnson's few lapses of judgment

 

[GreenKnight121]

The C-130 Hercules is the perfect airlifter

Kelly Johnson made few mistakes as Lockheed’s star engineer, but he made a beaut when he offered his opinion of the original C-130. “Hibbard, if you sign that letter,” Johnson said, pointing to the cover sheet that was to accompany Lockheed’s C-130 prototype proposal to the U.S. Air Force, “you will destroy Lockheed.” He thought the Hercules, which had all the style and grace of a road grader, was so ugly that the company wouldn’t sell enough to recoup its considerable development expenses.

 

[NTGray]

One of my favorite stories regarding the Hercules. These photos are real, not photoshopped. A Herc demonstrated that it was indeed possible to land on an aircraft carrier, but the navy decided not to put the idea into regular practice.

 

[EwenS]

One of my favorite stories regarding the Hercules. These photos are real, not photoshopped. A Herc demonstrated that it was indeed possible to land on an aircraft carrier, but the navy decided not to put the idea into regular practice.

Report of the trial landings on Forrestal. It answers one question I always had. Landing weights were steadily increased from 85,000lbs to 121,000lbs.

https://www.navsource.org/archives/02/025982d.pdf

 

[glennasher]

I loved those things. I made most of my jumps out of C-130s during my years in the 82nd. Abn. Division. Always stable, nice, easy jumps. The C-141s were okay, but the C-130s were just nice. Did lots of air-lands, too. My favorite bird of that era. "Stable" is the best word I can come up with, regarding the Herky-bird.

 

[SaparotRob]

It’s one of the greats.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I loved those things. I made most of my jumps out of C-130s during my years in the 82nd. Abn. Division. Always stable, nice, easy jumps. The C-141s were okay, but the C-130s were just nice. Did lots of air-lands, too. My favorite bird of that era. "Stable" is the best word I can come up with, regarding the Herky-bird.

Been on one twice. Loud sonsabitches.

 

[MIflyer]

How many of y;all have ever seen one of the early C-130A, without the "dog nose" radome? It looked like a KC-97 in the front. OK ANG had a few of those, and the first time I saw one land at Tinker AFB I thought, "Did I see that?"

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I loved those things. I made most of my jumps out of C-130s during my years in the 82nd. Abn. Division. Always stable, nice, easy jumps. The C-141s were okay, but the C-130s were just nice. Did lots of air-lands, too. My favorite bird of that era. "Stable" is the best word I can come up with, regarding the Herky-bird.

I hated flying in the damn things. Uncomfortable as hell, loud, and hot. Plus I see zero point in jumping out of a perfectly good flying aircraft.

 

[manta22]

I flew into the Outer Hebrides in one of these, sitting next to our big Operations Vanwhich was chained down to the deck. We flew from Rhein-Main AFB to Benbecula Aerodrome, an RAF base with a short runway. Landing was dicey- reverse pitch, stand on the brakes & recite prayer. Hope chains don't break. The Royal Artillery Guided Weapons Range is where we fired missiles out into the Atlantic.

 

[special ed]

A 130 is an airliner compared to a C-119.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice one!

 

[glennasher]

I hated flying in the damn things. Uncomfortable as hell, loud, and hot. Plus I see zero point in jumping out of a perfectly good flying aircraft.

Jumping was fun. when you're still young enough to rebound from the work involved, plus, it goes with the job of being an 11C-1P. Hard to be an Airborne Mortar Maggot if you don't jump out of aircraft.
My FIRST jump was out of a C-123, perhaps the last one in USAF inventory at the time, and that was definitely NOT a perfectly good flying aircraft. I was delighted to get out of that crapfest of parts disguised as an aircraft. I don't know if the 123 was the last one in inventory or not, but that's what they said at the airfield on Ft. Benning. They might have been blowing smoke, for all I know. Jumping out of Hueys and Chinooks is pretty good fun, too. We used to do that on the weekends.
It's fun stuff for the youngsters, no doubt about that.

 

[buffnut453]

I always enjoyed flying in the Herc, not least because we could take our green maggot (sleeping bag) onboard and, after take-off, were free to find any comfortable spot to lie down on the cargo. I always found the resonant droning a pleasant way to drift off into the Land of Nod.

The one exception was a zero-notice deployment to Africa, the first leg of which was to Cyprus. I went to the medical centre the day before the flight for the requisite check-up and jabs. While I was always attracted to the idea of having a nurse on each arm, it was less pleasing when they both were equipped with an array of vaccines and needles....and duly turned me into a pin cushion. The combined side effects of all those jabs was....well, let's just say "Not pleasant!"

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Jumping was fun. when you're still young enough to rebound from the work involved, plus, it goes with the job of being an 11C-1P. Hard to be an Airborne Mortar Maggot if you don't jump out of aircraft.
My FIRST jump was out of a C-123, perhaps the last one in USAF inventory at the time, and that was definitely NOT a perfectly good flying aircraft. I was delighted to get out of that crapfest of parts disguised as an aircraft. I don't know if the 123 was the last one in inventory or not, but that's what they said at the airfield on Ft. Benning. They might have been blowing smoke, for all I know. Jumping out of Hueys and Chinooks is pretty good fun, too. We used to do that on the weekends.
It's fun stuff for the youngsters, no doubt about that.

More power to you. I’ll stick to flying/crewing the things.

 

[MIflyer]

More power to you. I’ll stick to flying/crewing the things

Parachute guys carry a spare parachute when they go up. Do we airplane guys carry a spare airplane when we go up? No. That says it all.

 

[Aeroweanie]

Kelly Johnson had a lot of lapses of judgement:
1 XP-80 inlet collapse
2 P-38 compressibility issues (which I believe was due to a poor center pod design, combined with the thick inboard wing airfoil)
3 XF-90
4 F-104 downward firing ejection seat
5 CL-400 Suntan (until he finally cancelled it)
6 M-21/D-21 launch
7 CL-204 Lancer (Col. Boyd claims that CLJ tried to bribe him)
8 Unwillingness to accept the Have Blue design (which led to my friend Dick Scherrer having a stroke)

 

[EwenS]

Parachute guys carry a spare parachute when they go up. Do we airplane guys carry a spare airplane when we go up? No. That says it all.

No. But sometimes the aircraft takes its own parachute along for the ride.

Cirrus Airframe Parachute System - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Dronescapes]

Kelly Johnson had a lot of lapses of judgement:
1 XP-80 inlet collapse
2 P-38 compressibility issues (which I believe was due to a poor center pod design, combined with the thick inboard wing airfoil)
3 XF-90
4 F-104 downward firing ejection seat
5 CL-400 Suntan (until he finally cancelled it)
6 M-21/D-21 launch
7 CL-204 Lancer (Col. Boyd claims that CLJ tried to bribe him)
8 Unwillingness to accept the Have Blue design (which led to my friend Dick Scherrer having a stroke)

Don't all people that actually really do, or do a lot, make statistically more mistakes?
Enzo Ferrari did a lot (with few people and not infinite funding), and won a lot, but he also made a lot of mistakes.
While he was winning left and right, Ford decided to beat him, and it took a massive effort to do so, lots of losses, a lot of time, and a lot of help from the Brits to finally beat the old man, and his small team of people.
I have no doubt that under his direction Skunk Works made a lot of mistakes, but they also created, just like Enzo Ferrari (or Steve Jobs I might add), some remarkable things.
If it takes a decade to make an aircraft, with infinite budgets, and 100s of engineers, perhaps you make fewer mistakes.
I am more scared by a company like Boeing knowingly making "mistakes" like the 737 MAX.
I often think of Adrian Newey in F1. He still uses pen and paper, yet he crowned many world champions, in multiple cars, and different brands. He also made mistakes, but there is only one Adrian Newey, only one Steve Jobs, one Enzo Ferrari, and I think one Kelly Johnson

 

[MIflyer]

If you look at the specs on the Cirrus SR-20/22 you see that the parachute will not be useful under most of the circumstances where you would need it, like in a spin below 1000 ft AGL.

Actually, there was a concept for the USAF ejection seats to convert into a jet powered gyrocopters so they could fly to a more suitable rescue area.