Military Heat

In November 1963 the C-130 Hercules made history by setting a record for the largest and heaviest airplane landing on a Navy aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier was the USS Forrestal, a US Navy supercarrier named after former Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal. The Forrestal was launched on December 11th, 1954, and was the lead ship of her class of aircraft carriers.
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One of the planes that impressed me in my early years, was the C-130 Hercules. I don’t know why, but along with the DC-3 (and the military version C-47) it has always caught my imagination and interest.
The aircraft started production in ‘56 after the project was won in the 1950 by Lockheed Martin with the YC-130 prototype. An interesting fact is that this “old girl” is still in production!
Actually it’s still wanted by military air forces around the world including the USAF. And in September 2006 the “headcount” was for 186 planes to be made and delivered! That is simply unheard off, for such an “old plane”, but the secret stands in its oldness. Or lack of it, actually.
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