AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 95 / 123

Plate 95 of 123 · Cold War · Tactical transport

Lockheed C-130 Hercules

C.3, painted as XV202, a Lockheed C-130K Hercules C.3: the RAF's stretched Hercules, lengthened by 4.57 m with plugs fore and aft of the wing, a high-winged four-engined tactical transport powered by four Allison T56 turboprops driving four-blade Hamilton Standard propellers, with a rear loading ramp under the upswept tail and an in-flight refuelling probe over the cockpit as a C.3P; delivered in 1967, stretched by Marshall of Cambridge in 1984 and flown to the RAF Museum Midlands, Cosford, for display in August 2011; painted as it is shown there: faded olive drab overall, low-visibility red and blue roundels on the rear fuselage, a red and blue fin flash with ‘202’ above it, ‘202’ under the cockpit windows and grey engine cowlings; the starboard markings are assumed to mirror the port side and the wings are left unmarked because no photograph shows them.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as XV202, a Lockheed C-130K Hercules C.3: the RAF's stretched Hercules, lengthened by 4.57 m with plugs fore and aft of the wing, a high-winged four-engined tactical transport powered by four Allison T56 turboprops driving four-blade Hamilton Standard propellers, with a rear loading ramp under the upswept tail and an in-flight refuelling probe over the cockpit as a C.3P; delivered in 1967, stretched by Marshall of Cambridge in 1984 and flown to the RAF Museum Midlands, Cosford, for display in August 2011; painted as it is shown there: faded olive drab overall, low-visibility red and blue roundels on the rear fuselage, a red and blue fin flash with ‘202’ above it, ‘202’ under the cockpit windows and grey engine cowlings; the starboard markings are assumed to mirror the port side and the wings are left unmarked because no photograph shows them. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.4 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (C-130K / WC-130E); engine, crew and dimensions are for the C.3 modelled here.

History

The Hercules C.3

The Korean War showed the United States Air Force that it had no transport able to carry troops and heavy equipment into rough forward airstrips, and in 1951 it asked for one. Lockheed’s answer, designed at Burbank under Willis Hawkins, was a high-winged box with four Allison T56 turboprops, a flat cargo floor at truck-bed height, a loading ramp under the upswept tail and main wheels tucked into fairings on the fuselage sides so the hold was left clear. The first YC-130 flew from Burbank to Edwards on 23 August 1954, and production moved to Lockheed’s plant at Marietta in Georgia.

The RAF ordered 66 C-130Ks in the mid-1960s to replace its Hastings and Beverleys. They were C-130Hs with British avionics and equipment, flown from Marietta to Marshall of Cambridge to be completed, and they served as the Hercules C.1 from 1967, based at Lyneham. In the Falklands war of 1982 Hercules fitted in a hurry with refuelling probes flew round trips of more than 24 hours from Ascension Island to drop supplies to ships and to the islands. Between 1979 and 1985 Marshall stretched 30 of them into the C.3, adding fuselage plugs in front of and behind the wing that lengthened it by 15 ft and let it carry more troops or pallets.

RAF Hercules flew famine relief in Ethiopia in 1984 and 1985, the airlift into Sarajevo in the 1990s and supply and special forces flights in the Gulf, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. The C-130K was replaced by the C-130J from 1999 and retired in 2013, and the J in its turn left RAF service in 2023. More than 2,500 Hercules have been built for some 70 countries, and the type is still in production.

This airframe

C.3 XV202

XV202The airframe modelled

XV202 (Lockheed c/n 382-4226) was built in 1966 and joined No. 48 Squadron in 1967 as a C.1. Marshall of Cambridge stretched it to C.3 standard in 1984, and it later flew with Nos. 70 and 47 Squadrons, gaining a refuelling probe over the cockpit as a C.3P. No. 47 Squadron flew it into Cosford on its last flight on 12 August 2011, and the Royal Air Force Museum displays it outside. The model shows it as photographed there: faded olive drab overall, low-visibility red and blue roundels on the rear fuselage, a red and blue fin flash with “202” above it, “202” under the cockpit windows, grey engine cowlings, red blanks in the engine intakes and fuel tanks under the wings. Every photograph found shows the port side or the front, so the starboard markings are assumed to match, and none shows the wing surfaces, so no wing roundels are painted.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum Midlands

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Hercules C.3 in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 123 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.