Updating The USCG Air Fleet
Lockheed Martin
formally delivered the first HC-130J Super Hercules airlifters to
the Coast Guard in ceremonies at the Coast Guard Air Station in
Elizabeth City (NJ) Sunday. The new aircraft will serve in a number
of roles for the Coast Guard, which now falls under the Department
of Homeland Security. They'll eventually replace the service's
oldest HC-130H long-range maritime patrol aircraft, a number of
which were built in the early 1970s.
As part of the ceremony, the Coast Guard's HC-130J Aircraft
Project Office (APO), which will conduct initial aircrew and
maintenance training and develop a support and operations concept
for the aircraft, was formally established. Lockheed Martin has
established a technical and customer support center as an adjunct
to the APO.
The station itself is noteworthy to aviation. On Dec. 17, 1903,
volunteers from the Life Saving Service station (as the Coast Guard
was then called) on North Carolina's Outer Banks assisted Wilbur
and Orville Wright as they prepared their flying machine for
mankind's first manned, powered, sustained and controlled flight. A
Coast Guardsman, John T. Daniels, even took the photograph of the
first flight.
A Lockheed Martin crew
flew the first HC-130J for the first time on Dec. 17, 2002, the
99th anniversary of the Wrights' epic flight, and the 100th C-130J
built carries the Coast Guard tail number 2003. Four HC-130Js have
been delivered, and the last two aircraft currently on contract for
the Coast Guard are scheduled for delivery from the Lockheed Martin
facility in Marietta, Ga., later this year.
The HC-130Js will increase Coast Guard capability in the
service's primary mission areas: long-range search and rescue; law
enforcement (which includes alien migrant interdiction, living
marine resources and counter-drug operations); airlift; other
homeland security operations as necessary; and to augment
Department of Defense operations during contingencies.
At first, the HC-130Js, which have the enhanced cargo-handling
system that allows rapid conversion from in-floor load tiedowns to
rollers for palletized cargo, will be operated in a logistics
support role, allowing the Coast Guard's fully missionized HC-130H
fleet to be better utilized on maritime patrol and homeland
security missions. Currently, the Coast Guard's HC-130Hs, the last
of which were delivered in the early 1980s, have among the highest
operational tempos of any C-130 fleet in the world, with aircraft
being flown roughly 1,000 hours a year.
With funding now available, the Coast Guard will initiate a
development program to fully missionize the HC-130J. Modifications
likely will include the installation of a large window on each side
of the fuselage to allow crew members to visually scan the sea
surface, and the addition of an inverse synthetic aperture sea
search radar, flare tubes, a forward-looking
infrared/electro-optical sensor, a gaseous oxygen system for the
crew and an enhanced communications suite. When the fully
missionized HC-130Js enter operational service, they are likely to
be stationed at CGAS Kodiak, Alaska.
A total of 179 C-130Js and longer fuselage length C-130J-30s are
on order, and 105 have been delivered to date.
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