Jeb's own C130

[RangerDanger75]

In 1980 someone thought it would be a great idea to attach rockets the side of a C130. Jeb would be so proud!

check it out

[Wayward son]

Jet Assisted Take Off has been used for decades, but that\'s the first reverse thrust/braking set up that uses dedicated engines I\'ve seen on a plane.

[thorfinn]

that\'s the first reverse thrust/braking set up that uses dedicated engines I\'ve seen on a plane.

I think that the video shows clearly why nobody else ever tried.

Had they gone through the mission, though, they would have made Col. Hannibal and Murdock proud...

[semininja]

It looks like the crash was due primarily to bad timing on the firing of the rockets, though, so it\'s not as though it\'s a complete failure. It looked pretty effective aside from that.

[RangerDanger75]

Jet Assisted Take Off has been used for decades, but that\'s the first reverse thrust/braking set up that uses dedicated engines I\'ve seen on a plane.

Yeah, its more of the fact that they strapped them to a C130, which is normally a strictly prop plane, that cracked me up. ;P

[DoctorEvo]

Pollution JATO is awesome.

[thorfinn]

Pollution JATO is awesome.

MOAR BOOSTERS

[sluissa]

The C-130 was actually being prepared to be used for the one mission to rescue the hostages in Iran. It was arguably only due to human error that the plane crashed. Ideally they would have been controlled automatically. It\'s undetermined if it was pilot error or malfunction though. I believe officially it was pilot error, but unofficial claims later came out that it was a malfunction.

Still, I will admit, it\'s somewhat silly, even if it\'s really awesome.

[rdfox]

It was actually a POLITICAN error.

The final version of the rocket control software was due to arrive the very next day, but for political reasons, they were required to do a full-flight demonstration test of the aircraft *before* it arrived, meaning that an on-board engineer had to manually actuate the rockets. The engineer was dazzled/blinded by the initial set of braking rockets firing, and instead of firing the vertical descent rockets, he accidentally fired the 'after landing only' additional braking rockets, basically stopping the airplane in mid-air.

There was actually a second prototype YMC-130, fully prepared to be flown with the braking, descent, lift, and acceleration rockets, but the plan was cancelled after the first prototype\'s crash. (The plan was to land the airplane *inside a soccer stadium*, have troops retrieve the hostages from the Embassy, then fly it *out* of the soccer stadium and land on the carrier Nimitz in the Persian Gulf, to deliver any hostages who needed immediate medical attention, and then from there proceed on to an American airbase to recover.)

[sluissa]

It was actually a POLITICAN error.

The final version of the rocket control software was due to arrive the very next day, but for political reasons, they were required to do a full-flight demonstration test of the aircraft *before* it arrived, meaning that an on-board engineer had to manually actuate the rockets. The engineer was dazzled/blinded by the initial set of braking rockets firing, and instead of firing the vertical descent rockets, he accidentally fired the 'after landing only' additional braking rockets, basically stopping the airplane in mid-air.

There was actually a second prototype YMC-130, fully prepared to be flown with the braking, descent, lift, and acceleration rockets, but the plan was cancelled after the first prototype\'s crash. (The plan was to land the airplane *inside a soccer stadium*, have troops retrieve the hostages from the Embassy, then fly it *out* of the soccer stadium and land on the carrier Nimitz in the Persian Gulf, to deliver any hostages who needed immediate medical attention, and then from there proceed on to an American airbase to recover.)

I do know there was a second one and that it was eventually returned back to normal duty. However, I was under the impression that the carrier landing of a c-130 was only ever attempted once, in a completely unrelated test.

I have a hard time believing they would have attempted that with civilians on board either. The landing in the soccer stadium is dangerous enough, but there would be no civilians on board at that point. After that, its a fairly typical rocket assisted take-off out of there. But to also try to pile on a carrier landing to that too... seems unreasonable. Imagine the repercussions if they had successfully rescued the hostages, but they then all died in some failed carrier landing stunt simply because one of them had a broken arm or something?

I do believe that it could easily have been a politican error as far as the screwed up test was concerned, but that\'s the first I\'ve heard of it.

[Andras]

The C-130 peformed 50 landings on the USS Forrestal. 29 touch and goes, and 21 full stop. Only minor modifications to the langing gear were needed. The aircraft can make full stop landings on both the angled and axial decks. More cargo can be landed on the axial deck.

skip up to 2:00 if attention impaired.

[rdfox]

But to also try to pile on a carrier landing to that too... seems unreasonable. Imagine the repercussions if they had successfully rescued the hostages, but they then all died in some failed carrier landing stunt simply because one of them had a broken arm or something?

This was the plan *if* any of the hostages needed immediate medical attention. A broken arm would be something they could wait on until they could get to a land base. The stop on the Nimitz would be if they needed someone unloaded for treatment stat.

[Tiberion]

Yeah since those carrier tests were back in \'63 and the rocket tests were in \'80, I imagine the improvements over 17 years would have made it even better at landing, and it could do it without the rockets anyway.

The only reason they didn\'t use the Hercules as the long range delivery plane was because it wouldn\'t fit on the elevators and such, so it was too big to really operate from the carrier, even if it could land and takeoff. So they developed the Greyhound instead.

Of course now we\'d just send an Osprey

Still, the C-130 is a pretty awesome aircraft, they use that airframe for a ridiculous amount of things; gunship, refueling, medivac, cargo and troop transport, and Fat Albert even flies in airshows with the Blue Angels, using a version of those JATO engines. It even partakes of wintersport (the Ski-130 flies supplies to Antarctica science stations)

[sacracker]

Of course now we\'d just send an Osprey

You joke, but it was actually this exact mission that generated the requirements for the Osprey. A lot of people deride it as an inadequate replacement for the CH/MH-53 but it was never intended as such. It was specifically built to fulfill this mission requirement.

Also, this mission (the Iran hostage situation in general, not just this C-130) is what sparked the creation of SOCOM.

dave

[Tiberion]

Nah I wasn\'t kidding, Osprey is pretty cool, though when it first started trials I was sure it would never work.

And its flight characteristics are at least mildly less frightening than the rocket-equipped C-130

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

Yet the C-130 still has one flaw, The Center Wing

[Johno]

The landing trials of the C-130 on the carrier were declare successful, if I remember correctly. It is therefore now considered a viable (if extreme) option to recover high value assets in a C-130 by landing them on a carrier, if there are no other landing sites nearby.

It would have to be an exceptionally high-value asset to be worth that. The aircraft itself would not really be worth such a high-risk recovery (you\'d order it to be destroyed rather than extract it in such a way), and very few people or cargoes would be worth it.

[DoctorEvo]

The issue with recovering a C-130 on a carrier was the fact that the ENTIRE deck had to be cleared to do so. Given how intense and complicated the logistics of moving even small, CATOBAR-capable aircraft around a carrier, this was easily enough to rule it out as an option for what they intended to do with it.

[Johno]

This is true. Normal operations on US carriers make extensive use of deck parking.

The Royal Navy (as far as I am aware) still has a policy of stowing all aircraft below deck unless launching or recovering. Assuming they don\'t change this policy when the Queen Elizabeth class carriers are in service, they\'ll have decks large enough to try this kind of stunt, AND they\'ll have them nice and clear. So maybe they\'ll put such an operation higher up the 'possibilities' chart.

(It\'d still be a pretty desperate stunt though).

[DoctorEvo]

I sorta feel like the Brits will return to deck parking with the Queen Elizabeth class now that it\'s slated for CATOBAR. The biggest advantage of CATOBAR is that it consumes only a small amount of deck space for launching, and leaves considerable space for simultaneous landing or parking. The STOVL carriers often rely on using the whole deck for takeoff when loaded, so they actually frequently NEED the entire deck to launch without catapults. CATOBAR opens up a whole lot of real estate for all kinds of configurations and operations, permitting massively more frequent launch and recovery rates, and thus a higher mission-availability for aircraft operating from a single carrier. I highly doubt the Royal Navy will pass that operational capability up.

[rdfox]

From what I hear, the C-130\'s demonstrated ability to operate from a carrier *really* annoys the people at SOCOM... because they\'ve never had a chance to *use* that capability.

[Epsilon]

MOAR BOOSTERS

Why does this not surprise me...

I guess it\'s because of the NF-104.

[rdfox]

This was from the Zero-Length Launcher program, an experiment tried a couple of times to launch fighters without runways. They never did get to the point of manned tests; all the tests were done unmanned and with the airplane allowed to crash after burnout.

[Johno]

I sorta feel like the Brits will return to deck parking with the Queen Elizabeth class now that it\'s slated for CATOBAR. The biggest advantage of CATOBAR is that it consumes only a small amount of deck space for launching, and leaves considerable space for simultaneous landing or parking. The STOVL carriers often rely on using the whole deck for takeoff when loaded, so they actually frequently NEED the entire deck to launch without catapults. CATOBAR opens up a whole lot of real estate for all kinds of configurations and operations, permitting massively more frequent launch and recovery rates, and thus a higher mission-availability for aircraft operating from a single carrier. I highly doubt the Royal Navy will pass that operational capability up.

I\'d agree with that, especially since all current aircraft are more or less weather resistant (the original reason for the RN\'s policy was to protect the aircraft against inclement weather).

That said, giving up STOVL means giving up some advantages as well - potentially every ship in the fleet with a helipad could recover Harriers, and the capacity for dispersing the aircraft to remote land sites is also impressive.

(This is assuming the RN don\'t get the best of both worlds - one option I heard of recently was ordering mostly CATOBAR F-35s, but getting a small number of STOVL aircraft as part of the order for special operations).