MC-130E Combat Talon MC-130E Combat Talon dispensing flares MC-130 nose Development As of May 2016, the Air Force has taken delivery of 33 of the planned 37 -J models. The MC-130J, which became operational in 2011, is the new-production variant that is replacing the other special operations MC-130s. The Combat Spear was developed in 2006 as an inexpensive version of the Combat Talon II but was reconfigured and designated the AC-130W Stinger II in 2012. The Combat Shadows were built during the Vietnam War for search and rescue operations and repurposed in the 1980s as AFSOC air-refueling tankers the last of the 24 retired in 2015. Four of the original 24 H-series aircraft have been lost in operations. An update, the MC-130H Combat Talon II, was developed in the 1980s from the C-130H and went into service in the 1990s.
Eighteen were created by modifying C-130E transports, and four lost through attrition, but the remainder served more than four decades after their initial modification. The first of the variants, the MC-130E, was developed to support clandestine special operations missions during the Vietnam War.
Based on the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport, the MC-130s' missions are the infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces, and the air refueling of (primarily) special operations helicopter and tilt-rotor aircraft. The Lockheed MC-130 is the basic designation for a family of special mission aircraft operated by the United States Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), a wing of the Air Education and Training Command, and an AFSOC-gained wing of the Air Force Reserve Command.
0 kommentar(er)
