From combat delivery and aerial refueling to airborne surveillance and hurricane hunting, the C-130 Hercules has been a utility player in the world of aviation for six decades.
On Wednesday, one crashed near the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport during a training mission. Several crew members died. The cause of the crash is not yet known.
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The plane belonged to the 156th Airlift Wing unit of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard. It is one of the unit's six C-130s in its fleet, according to a military website.
The C-130 has been called the "most successful military aircraft ever."
Here are some facts and history about the plane.
What’s special about it?
The aircraft is known for is aft loading ramp/door and its ability to hold a massive amount of stuff, everything from helicopters and six-wheeled armored vehicles to pallets of cargo and military personnel.
The plane can airdrop loads up to 21 tons, according to a U.S. Military description of the aircraft.
The aircraft came to be about the time the U.S. got involved in the Korean War, during which it was used to haul cargo.
According to the Air Mobility Command Museum, the C-130 Hercules was counted on to offload pallets of cargo during the Vietnam War.
"C-130 aircraft and crews rotated into South Vietnam every few weeks from bases in the Philippines, Taiwan, Okinawa, and Japan," according to the museum's website.
Variants of the aircraft are still important to the U.S. military.
In April 2017, President Donald Trump early in his presidency ordered that U.S. forces drop a Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB, on a suspected ISIS facility in Afghanistan. People sometime use the slang description of MOAB — Mother Of All Bombs.
That MOAB was dropped from an MC-130.
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Have I seen one around metro Atlanta?
You might have. According to a military website, there's at least one at least one assigned to Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta.
In fact, the C-130 has a strong connection to the area. The C-130 program moved to Lockheed's Marietta facility from Burbank, California. The first production C-130A was flown for the first time from Marietta on April 7, 1955.
About half of the 5,000 workers at Lockheed Martin's Marietta facility in June 2017 were assigned to work on the C-130.
An aerospace workers union has fought to keep the C-130 contract in Cobb County.
As reported in June 2017, more than 2,500 C-130s have been built in Marietta since the early 1950s.
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What else can they do?
The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in Biloxi, Mississippi has 10 WC-130J aircraft. That squad is known as the "Hurricane Hunters."
Their mission is to perform aerial weather reconnaissance and fly close to tropical storms and hurricanes for the National Weather Service in Miami.
These Super Hercules planes are equipped with special meteorological instruments.
According to a military website: "It all started in 1943 as a bar room dare, when two Army Air Corps pilots challenged each other to fly through a hurricane. On July 27, 1943, Maj. Joe Duckworth flew a propeller-driven, single-engine North American AT-6 'Texan' trainer into the eye of a hurricane."
For more on the C-130, read Lockheed literature about the aircraft here.
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