C-130 Hercules

by Martin W Bowman

‘The exploding aircraft and ammo sent flaming bits of hot metal and debris spraying across the makeshift airport, riddling the four remaining working helicopters, whose crews jumped out and moved to a safe distance. Most of the men had no idea what was going on; they knew only that a plane and a chopper had been destroyed. The air over the scene was heavy with the door of fuel, so it wasn’t hard to imagine that all the other aircraft might burst into flames as well. The remaining C-130s began taxiing in different directions away from the conflagration.

  MC-130E 64-0564 and ‘Dragon 2’ crew just before departing for Desert One.

  ‘Word of the calamity reached the command centre in Wadi Kena in a hurried report: ‘We have a crash. A helo crashed into one of the C-130s. We have some dead, some wounded and some trapped. The crash site is ablaze; ammunition is cooking off.’

  ‘The only course now was to clear out and fast. Some thought was given to retrieving the bodies of the dead, but the fire was raging and there wasn’t time... As Burruss headed back to his C-130, he took one last look at the flaming ruins of the plane and the chopper and felt a stab of remorse over leaving the dead behind. But nothing could be done about it.

  ‘America’s elite rescue force had lost eight servicemen - five of fourteen USAF aircrew in the EC-130 and three of the five USMC aircrew in the RH-53, with only the helicopter’s pilot and co-pilot (both badly burned) surviving as well as seven helicopters and a C-130 and had not even made contact with the enemy. It was a debacle. It defined the word ‘debacle.’3

  During the frantic evacuation to the EC-130s by the helicopter crews, attempts were made to retrieve their classified mission documents and destroy the aircraft. The helicopter crews boarded the EC-130s. Five RH-53 aircraft were left behind mostly intact, some damaged by shrapnel. The EC-130s carried the remaining forces back to the intermediate airfield at Masirah Island, where two C-141 medical evacuation aircraft from the staging base at Wadi Abu Shihat, Egypt picked up the injured personnel, helicopter crews, Rangers and Delta Force members. The injured were then transported to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The White House announced the failed rescue operation at 1:00 am the following day. On 20 January 1981, minutes after Carter’s term ended, the 52 US captives held in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis.

  Former ‘Heavy Chain’ and ‘Desert One’ veteran 64-0564 crashed into the ocean shortly after a pre-dawn takeoff from NAS Cubi Point, Philippines on 26 February 1981, killing fifteen passengers and eight of nine crewmen. The Talon was taking part in Special Warfare Exercise 81 and had flown twelve missions in the preceding sixteen days. Following an administrative flight the day before, the crew was scheduled for its last mission, a night exercise that was set back from 0100 local time to 0430. The flight profile consisted of a normal takeoff, a tactical landing a half hour later to onload fifteen Navy SEALs, followed by a tactical takeoff. The Talon reported normal flight conditions six minutes after the tactical takeoff, but crashed nine minutes later. No cause was determined, but investigators found that the likely causes were either crew fatigue from operations tempo, or failure of the terrain following radar to enter ‘override’ mode while over water.

  Within two weeks of the failure of Operation ‘Eagle Claw’ the Pentagon began planning for a second mission. A new organization, the Joint Test Directorate (JTD), was established to assist and support the Office of Secretary of Defense Directorate (OSD) joint planning staff. Under the name ‘Honey Badger’, the JTD conducted a series of large-scale joint-force exercises and projects to develop and validate a variety of capabilities that would be available to OSD when mission requirements were identified. JTD trained a large and diverse force of US Army and USAF special operations and aviation units, but the critical factor remained extracting the rescue team and freed hostages from Tehran. The ‘Credible Sport’ project, a joint undertaking of the USAF, US Navy and Lockheed-Georgia was created within ‘Honey Badger’ to develop a reliable extraction capability. ‘Credible Sport’ was tasked to create a large ‘Super STOL’ fixed-wing aircraft to extract the rescue team and hostages and overcome the ‘weak link’ in the previous plan, the heavy lift helicopter.

  ‘Credible Sport’ called for a modified C-130 to land in the Amjadien Stadium across the street from the US Embassy in Tehran and airlift out Delta Force operators and the rescued hostages. The aircraft would then be flown to and landed on an aircraft carrier for immediate medical treatment of an expected fifty wounded.

  ‘Armi’ Armitage the Lockheed test pilot said: ‘The hostages were daily marched around the soccer field near the American Embassy and we were given advance notice of when the hostages would be at the field on a given day by one of the many Iranians who were still friendly to the US. The planes were equipped with flares, a radar altimeter and even a laser altimeter that looked ahead at the landing aim point to give a precise slant altitude above the touchdown point. A computer was to control the firing of the rockets. If the retrorockets fired before they were on the ground, they were dead. A test was scheduled for three days before the planned mission date in October. If the test were successful, the mission would be a GO.’

  Three MC-130 Combat Talon crews (all ‘Eagle Claw’ veterans) were assigned to fly the three aircraft, drawn from the 463rd Tactical Airlift Wing, with the concept plan calling for the mission of two aircraft (one primary and one spare) to originate in the US reaching Iran by five in flight refuellings and penetrate at low altitude in the dark to evade Iranian air defences. Three C-130s were modified under a top secret project at Eglin Air Force Base Auxiliary Field #1 (Wagner Field), Florida. The contract called for two to be modified to the proposed XFC-130H configuration within 90 days and the third to be used as a test bed for various rocket packages blistered onto the forward and aft fuselage, which theoretically enabled the aircraft to land and take off within the sports arena’s confines. (A fourth aircraft, an EC-130 ABCCC, was used as the interior mock-up airframe for simulator training.)

  After Lockheed was requested on 27 June 1980 to begin preliminary engineering studies on an STOL Hercules, the use of JATO units was explored, since these had previously been used to power takeoffs. Lockheed reported on 16 July that 58 JATO bottles (more than seven times greater than normal) would be required and that arresting gear would be insufficient to stop the C-130 in the required space. The US Navy’s Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake organization was then brought into the project to provide expertise on existing rocket motor power. Lockheed proceeded with work to structurally reinforce the C-130 airframe to withstand rocket forces and to develop a passenger restraint system for 150 persons.

  The resulting XFC-130H aircraft were modified by the installation of thirty rockets in multiple sets: eight forward-pointed ASROC rocket motors mounted around the forward fuselage to stop the aircraft, eight downwardpointed Shrike rockets fuselage-mounted above the wheel wells to brake its descent, eight rearwardpointed MK-56 rockets (from the RIM-66 Standard missile) mounted on the lower rear fuselage for takeoff assist, two Shrikes mounted in pairs on wing pylons to correct yaw during takeoff transition and two ASROCs mounted at the rear of the tail to prevent it from striking the ground from over-rotation.

  Other STOL features included a dorsal and two ventral fins on the rear fuselage, double-slotted flaps and extended ailerons, a new radome, a tail hook for landing aboard an aircraft carrier and Combat Talon avionics, including a Terrain Following/Terrain Avoidance radar, a defensive countermeasures suite and a Doppler radar/GPS tie-in to the aircraft’s inertial navigation system.

  The test bed aircraft (74-2065) was ready for its first test flight on 18 September 1980, just three weeks after the project’s initiation. The first fully modified aircraft (74-1683) was delivered on 17 October to TAB 1 (Wagner Field/Eglin AF No. 1), a disused auxiliary airfield at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Between 19 October and 28 October, numerous flights were made testing various aspects, including the double-slotted flaps system, which enabled the C-130 to fly at 85 knots on
final approach at a very steep eight-degree glide slope. All aspects worked flawlessly and a full profile test was scheduled for 29 October.

  The test’s takeoff phase was executed flawlessly, setting a number of short takeoff records. ‘Armi’ Armitage and the Lockheed test crew then assessed that the computer used to command the firing of the rockets during the landing sequence needed further calibration and elected to manually input commands. The reversemounted (forward-facing) eight ASROC rockets for decelerating the aircraft’s forward speed were situated in pairs on the fuselage’s upper curvature behind the cockpit and at the midpoint of each side of the fuselage beneath the uppers. Testing had determined that the upper pairs, fired sequentially, could be ignited while still airborne (specifically, at 20 feet), but that the lower pairs could only be fired after the aircraft was on the ground, with the descent-braking rockets also firing during the sequence.

  The flight engineer, blinded by the firing of the upper deceleration rockets, thought the aircraft was on the runway and fired the lower set early. The descent-braking rockets didn’t fire at all. Later unofficial disclaimers allegedly made by some of the Lockheed test crew’s members asserted that the lower rockets fired themselves through an undetermined computer or electrical malfunction, which at the same time failed to fire the descentbraking rockets. As a result, the aircraft’s forward flight was immediately reduced to nearly zero, dropping it hard to the runway and breaking the starboard wing between the third and fourth engines. During rollout, the trailing wing ignited a fire, but a medical evacuation helicopter dispersed the flame and crash response teams extinguished the fire within eight seconds of the aircraft stopping, enabling the crew to safely exit the aircraft. 74-1683 was dismantled and buried onsite for security reasons, but most of its unique systems were salvaged.

  74-1686 was nearly ready for delivery, but when on 2 November 1980 the Iranian parliament accepted an Algerian plan for release of the hostages, followed two days later by Ronald Reagan’s election as the US President, the rescue mission plan was cancelled. The hostages were subsequently released concurrent with Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981.

  The remaining airframes were stripped of their rocket modifications and 74-2065 returned to regular airlift duties. 74-1686, however, retained its other ‘Credible Sport’ STOL modifications and was sent to Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. There, in July 1981 it was designated YMC-130H as the test bed for the MC-130 Combat Talon II’s development, under Project ‘Credible Sport II’. Phase I was conducted between 24 August-11 November 1981 to test minor modifications to improve aerodynamics, satisfy ‘Combat Talon II’ prototype requirements on STOL performance, handling characteristics and avionics and to establish safety margins. It also identified design deficiencies in the airframe and determined that the ‘Credible Sport’ configuration was suitable only for its specific mission and didn’t have the safety margins necessary for peacetime operations. Phase II testing which began on 15 June 1982 and continued until October determined that the final configuration resulted in significant improvements in design, avionics and equipment and that the ‘Combat Talon II’ design was ready for production. The 1st Special Operations Wing attempted to have the test bed transferred to operational duty as an interim ‘Combat Talon II’ until production models became available, but Headquarters, Tactical Airlift Command disagreed. The cost of returning the YMC-130H to stock airlift configuration was more than its value and it never flew again.4

  The forlorn wreckage of EC-130E (ABCCC) 62-1809 which was destroyed in the collision with US Navy RH-53D 158761 Sea Stallion at ‘Desert One’.

  The 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq resulted in the deployment of four Combat Talons and six crews of the 8th SOS in August 1990 to King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia as a component of Operation ‘Desert Shield’. During Operation ‘Desert Storm’, the combat phase of the Gulf War in January and February 1991, the Combat Talon performed one-third of all airdrops during the campaign and participated in psychological operations, flying 15 leaflet-drop missions before and throughout the war. Combat Talon crews also conducted five BLU-82B ‘Daisy Cutter’ missions during the two weeks preceding the onset of the ground campaign, dropping eleven bombs on Iraqi positions at night from altitudes between 16,000 feet and 21,000 feet, once in concert with a bombardment by the battleship USS Wisconsin.

  Two 7th SOS Talons deployed to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, as part of Operation ‘Proven Force’. They supported the first Joint Search and Rescue mission over Iraq, attempting to recover the crew of ‘Corvette 03’, a downed F-15E Strike Eagle. However permission from the Turkish government to fly the mission was delayed for 24 hours and the crew was not recovered.

  Three MC-130H Combat Talon IIs of the 7th SOS were deployed in December 1995 to deliver peacekeeping forces to Tuzla and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as part of Operation Joint Endeavour, during which one Talon was hit by ground fire. The first combat deployment of a Combat Talon II was on April 8, 1996, during Operation ‘Assured Response’. Special operations forces were deployed to Liberia to assist in the evacuation of 2000 civilians from the American embassy when the country broke down into civil war. However orders to combat drop an eighteenman SEAL team off Monrovia were rescinded and the mission landed in Sierra Leone. Similar circumstances brought the Combat Talon II to Zaire in 1997. Talon II deployments for joint exercises in 1997 included Australia, Guam, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand. In July 1997 three Talon IIs deployed to Thailand as part of Operation ‘Bevel Edge’, a proposed rescue of 1000 American citizens trapped in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, by a possible civil war, but the crisis ended when the Cambodian government allowed all non-citizens who desired so to leave by commercial air. A 7th SOS Combat Talon II aircrew, Whiskey 05, earned the Mackay Trophy for an embassy evacuation mission in the Republic of the Congo in June 1997. The crew rescued thirty Americans and twenty-six foreign nationals and logged twenty-one hours of flight time.

  The wreckage of EC-130E (ABCCC) 62-1809 with one of the abandoned RH-53D helicopters behind in the aftermath of Operation ‘Eagle Claw’ at Posht-i-Bada.

  Full operational capability for the ‘Talon II’ was reached in February 2000. At that time 24 MC-130Hs were deployed to four squadrons: 15th Special Operations Squadron, eleven at Hurlburt Field, Florida; 1st Special Operations Squadron, five at Kadena AB, Okinawa; 7th Special Operations Squadron, five at RAF Mildenhall; and 550th Special Operations Squadron, three at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico.

  On the night of 19/20 October 2001 four Combat Talon IIs infiltrated a task force of 199 Rangers of the 3rd Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment and tactical PSYOP teams 658 miles inside Taliban-held Afghanistan. The force dropped onto Objective ‘Rhino’, an unused airfield in Kandahar Province 110 mi southwest of Kandahar, to secure a landing zone as a temporary operating base for Special Forces units conducting raids in the vicinity. A month later, two MC-130Hs, flying from Masirah Island, inserted a platoon of US ‘ Navy SEAL Team Three and four Humvee vehicles to within ten miles of the same airfield on the night of 20/21 November. The SEAL platoon was inserted to establish an observation post at the airstrip and then assist two USAF combat controllers inserted by military free fall in preparing a landing zone for the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The 15th MEU landed in CH-53 helicopters on 25 November 2001 and established Camp ‘Rhino’, the first forward operating base in Afghanistan for US forces.

  Combat Talon IIs of the 7th SOS, augmented by crews from the 15th and 550th SOSs, flew 13-to 15-hour airdrop and airlanding night resupply missions from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey to Special Forces Operational Detachments - Alpha (ODAs) in Afghanistan during the opening phase of Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in December 2001. Operating in mountainous terrain they innovated an airdrop tactic by replicating maximum-effort landing techniques to rapidly descend from 10,000 feet to 500 feet AGL to ensure accurate gravity drops after clearing high ridgelines into deep valleys.

  Combat Shadow 66-0213 was lost when it flew into
a mountain side in eastern Afghanistan on 13 February 2002. Assigned to the 9th SOS, the aircraft was called to perform on call refuelling for CSAR assets. The aircraft was forced to make an emergency climb in poor visibility to escape a box canyon in the mountainous terrain, ran out of climb performance and crash landed wheels up in deep snow. The aircraft was a total loss but the crew of eight survived. Combat Talon II 84-0475, assigned to the 15th SOS, was lost in a takeoff crash on 12 June 2002, near Gardez, Afghanistan. During a night exfiltration mission of two Special Forces soldiers from a landing strip at the Sardeh Band dam, the Talon crashed less than three miles from the airstrip shortly after takeoff. Conflicting reports point to overweight cargo and windshear as possible causes. The Talon’s two loadmasters and a passenger were killed.

  Combat Talon II 90-0161of the 15th SOS crashed into Monte Perucho, south of Caguas, Puerto Rico, during a training mission on 7 August 2002, killing all ten aboard. The Talon was flying a terrain following night mission in blowing rain and fog, along a low level route commonly used by the Puerto Rico Air National Guard. The crew misinterpreted and disregarded terrain obstacle warnings.

  A Combat Talon II of the 7th SOS (87-0127 ‘Wrath 11’) crashed during a terrain-followingand-avoidance night training exercise on 31 March 2005, near Rovie, in the Drizez Mountains in southeast Albania, 60 miles southeast of Tirana. The Talon had taken off from Tirana-Rinas Airport 20 minutes before and was one of two flying at 300 feet AGL at a reduced power setting. The aircraft was lost when it stalled attempting to clear terrain, killing all nine crew members.

  The 7th SOS, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Mark B. Alsid and part of the 352nd Special Operations Group, received the Gallant Unit Citation in 2006 for operations conducted during Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’ between 12 February and 12 May 2003. The 7th SOS was tasked to Joint Special Operations Task Force - North, known as Task Force ‘Viking’, whose objective was to hold 13 Iraqi Army divisions along the ‘Green Line’ in north-eastern Iraq to prevent those divisions from reinforcing other Iraqi operations against United States forces invading from Kuwait. Forward-based at Constanţa, Romania its primary mission was to infiltrate the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group and the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Group into Kurdish-held territory in preparation for Operation Northern Delay. Denied permission by Turkey to fly into Iraq from its airspace, the 7th SOS flew the first 280 troops on a circuitous path around Turkey to a base in Jordan on March 20–21, 2003. On March 22, six Combat Talon IIs (four from the 7th SOS) infiltrated 16 ODAs, four ODBs, battalion command elements and Air Force Combat Control Teams to complete the fifteen-hour mission, the longest in US ‘ Special Operations history. The insertion profile consisted of a four and one-half hour low level flight at night through western and northern Iraq to Bashur and Sulaymaniyah airfields, often taking heavy ground fire from the integrated air defences. The Talon IIs, at emergency gross weight limits, operated blackedout, employed chaff and electronic countermeasures, flew as low as 100 feet AGL and carried their troops tethered to the floor of the cargo holds. Three of the Talons were battledamaged, with one forced to seek permission to land at Incirlik Air Base. The operation became known informally as ‘Operation Ugly Baby’. Major Jason L. Hanover was individually honoured for commanding a mission that seized two austere airstrips during the operation. After airlanding their troops, the Talon IIs then had to fly back through the alerted defences to recover to their launching point.