Nausea, long trips and more: Memories of RAF workhorse the Hercules
Forces News staff who served in the military have been reflecting on their experiences – good and bad – of the C-130J Hercules as the aircraft makes its final flight in RAF service.
Known as the workhorse, the Hercules has been used on operations across the globe and Forces News staff who flew on 'Fat Albert' in their service careers shared their memories.
Here are their stories – warning: some accounts may make you feel queasy!
'Sounded like a series of bombs going off'
Reporter James Wharton writes about the shock he felt when a Hercules he was flying on launched, unexpectedly to him, a volley of countermeasures. James, a former soldier, was deploying to Iraq.
My overbearing memory of flying on a Hercules was when I was a 20-year-old trooper in the Household Cavalry Regiment, flying into Iraq from Camp Virginia in Kuwait.
Me and my mates were deployed on Operation Telic Ten, and although we'd done a familiarisation flight during pre-deployment training months before, nothing quite prepared us for the sudden descent into Basra, what we quickly understood to be a 'tactical landing' – an infamous experience felt by many over the years.
A few of the lads were a whiter shade of pale by the time the Herc's wheels met the runway.
But for me, that wasn't even the worst part of the short flight north. The bit that really turned my stomach was the moment the crew, unannounced, fired off a volley of countermeasures, known as chaff, as we passed into Iraqi airspace.
The noise, to the inexperienced passenger – which many of us were – sounded to me like a series of bombs going off outside the aircraft.
Nobody told me that was going to happen. I guess I was a bit jumpy anyway, but to say I panicked for a few seconds would be an understatement.
Sick into a helmet
Julian Perreira, a soldier-turned-reporter, recalls how, on his first operational tour, he flew on a Hercules to Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, and a rapid descent before landing made him feel, well, a little poorly.
It was summer 2007, during a late-night descend into Helmand Province, during my first-ever operational tour, that I first experienced flying inside an RAF C-130 Hercules – and ended with a late-night dhobi (washing).
In near complete darkness, myself, a battlefield casualty replacement, was waiting on the runway at Kandahar Airfield – ready to be flown the short distance of around 100 miles to the British main operating base in the middle of the Afghan desert, called Camp Bastion.
Due to the real threat of Taliban mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other anti-aircraft munitions, the safest option was to fly at night.
Me and other soldiers from many different regiments and units, including the already 'battle-hardened' troops who were now returning from their RnR, were packed like sardines into the airframe and off we headed west without incident.
That was until a 10-minute warning was given to say we would be descending onto the desert runway, at the heavily protected British base.
We then began to lose altitude pretty quickly and I had no idea that this was meant to be happening and only later found out it was routine procedure for pilots to use 'combat-style landings', to avoid being hit, by descending sharply and preventing becoming an easy target.
As we nose-dived even further, I really started to feel those first tour nerves and, without warning, the copious amount of food I ate from the US military's incredible DFAC came rushing back up.
The only place for it to go and, in time, was my upturned Kevlar helmet.
Another soldier sitting beside me, who would later become a close friend, couldn't contain his laughter.
Safe to say, the great flying skills of the Herc pilot and crew, managed to get us all back on terra firma, with only a few bumps and jolts, but we made it.
A tricky journey and... karaoke
During his time as a regular in the Royal Marines, archivist Richard White had some rather unconventional (and long!) journeys on a Hercules but, despite the delays, karaoke kept up the troops' morale.
In 1998, I flew with the Royal Marines and 20 Commando Battery Royal Artillery on a Hercules to El Paso in Texas for the air defence exercise Roving Sands. The whole flight took three days.
During the first stop in Iceland, we were walking back to the plane and could see fuel pouring out of the wing which was quite worrying as we were about to fly over the Atlantic Ocean. After a delay, the plane, which was carrying a BV206 all-terrain vehicle continued flying via Goose Bay in Labrador, Canada, and then Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Then a month later we flew back via Minneapolis before the Herc broke down in Gander, Newfoundland, where it was waiting for three days for a spare part.
After being in the Texas heat, Gander had sub-zero temperatures and 5ft snow drifts. The pilot carried a credit card so we were put up in a hotel for the entire time.
The highlight of the stopover was the Herc flight crew winning a Neil Diamond singing competition in a local saloon as they all seemed to be karaoke experts!
What are your memories of the Hercules?
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