Lockheed C-130 Hercules LC-130F/H/R

The LC-130 is the ski-equipped version of the C-130 Hercules used by the United States Air Force in the Arctic and Antarctic. Ten aircraft remain in service with the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard.

The programme started as a prototype developed in 1956 by modifying a C-130A with skis. In January 1957 Lockheed conducted the first flight of a C-130A (serial 55-0021) fitted with a ski-wheel configuration that could operate from conventional runways as well as from snow or ice-covered surfaces. In February, Task Force Slide began at Bemidji, Minnesota, to develop, test and validate the procedures for what would become the C-130D: flights were conducted on the frozen surface of nearby lakes and included rocket-assisted take-off. Task Force Slide continued into 1958 and by the end of that year twelve C-130As had been modified with skis and hydraulics. Now designated C-130D, they were delivered to the 61st Troop Carrier Squadron to support the construction of two DEW Line radar sites on the Greenland ice cap. Having proven the capability, in 1959 Headquarters USAF tasked seven of these aircraft to support Project Deep Freeze 60 in the Antarctic.

That same year the first four factory-equipped ski Hercules were produced under the Navy designation UV-1L; these were in fact C-130B airframes. The designation was later changed to C-130BL and finally to LC-130F when the Department of Defense standardised aircraft nomenclature across all services in 1962. The four aircraft were bought by the U.S. Navy to support its ongoing Antarctic expedition, and the Navy also purchased one LC-130R in 1968. The National Science Foundation, whose Polar Programs Division assumed management of the Antarctic Program in the early 1970s, bought the second set as replacements: designated LC-130R, they were delivered in two lots, three in 1974 and the remaining two in 1976.

The primary mission of the LC-130 is supporting the scientific community in Antarctica by transporting cargo and personnel from McMurdo Station to field stations and camps, including the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Retractable skis allow the aircraft to land on snow and ice as well as on conventional runways, and the aircraft has provisions for rocket-assisted take-off bottles, four on each side, installed and used when operating from rough or sticky snow surfaces or when shorter take-off runs are needed. The expended bottles were originally jettisonable, but after several accidents caused by a bottle detaching during take-off the mounting provisions were changed so that they could not be released in the air.

The LC-130 was originally operated by the Navy's Antarctic Development Squadron Six, first designated VX-6 and from 1969 VXE-6, home-based at Naval Air Station Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and later at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California. In 1999, when Navy support of the Antarctic programme ended, operation was transferred to the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard, and VXE-6 was decommissioned after 44 years of science and cargo support missions for Operation Deep Freeze. There have been two crashes in Antarctica: the first in 1971 at an ice runway 860 miles (1,380 km) from McMurdo Station, when two JATO bottles ejected improperly and struck a propeller; the second destroyed an aircraft delivering replacement parts for the first, killing two and injuring nine. The repaired aircraft was dug out of the snow, given temporary repairs and flown to McMurdo in 1987 at a cost of ten million dollars, then on to Christchurch, New Zealand; it re-entered service for several more Antarctic seasons before being retired to Davis-Monthan AFB some time after 1998. The current fleet operates from the Air National Guard facility at Schenectady County Airport and comprises seven LC-130H-2 aircraft — three of them former Navy LC-130Rs converted to the standard — and three LC-130H-3s.