C-130 desert camo markings

[KursadA]

Folks, what's the story behind this one? Can anyone identify the unit markings on it?

 

 

[JohnEB]

I saw one in that scheme in 1988. I have a slide  of it somewhere.

I don't know where it was based. Might even be the same aircraft.

 

My guess is it was a test scheme or a scheme on a small number of airframes. This was the time of the dark green/gray "Euro One" scheme, so it certainly stood out.

[Koen L]

37th TAS/435th TAW based at Rhein-Main AB. The unit had several aircraft in this scheme.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Koen L
adding more info

[mungo1974]

There was a bunch of Desert painted Herks that used to shuttle between  Little Rock, Ark and Germany as Koen said.

There was a grey example too with the 317TAW 64-0504,very simple markings.

If you're taking requests Kursad. 23WG at Pope AFB..save me buying a Academy reboxed Italeri kit just for the decals.

 

[11bee]

That scheme was a result of the Iran Hostage Crisis and the US military's pivot to the mideast theater.   I believe it came out in the very early 80's and involved a small portion of the Herc fleet (maybe a few dozen aircraft?).   Lasted for maybe a decade and then was phased out.  

[aircommando130]

It was part of the Rapid Deployment Force in the 80's. Every Herk base had several desert C-130's.

Then when Iraq invaded Kuwait and we all deployed for Desert Shield when we could use the desert paint

everything was European 1 and there was no hiding that! I liked the desert paint...thanks for posting those!

 

Cheers...Ron

[ikar]

If  those Herks were going to Little Rock and back then most likely they were assigned to the 314th at L.R.  While I was there a squadron would deploy to either England or Germany and would run Herks back and forth during the employment.  In the mean time Herks from Pope would take the other country, Germany or England and do the same thing.  If you had the time it was a good way to go over there,  It was inexpensive but you were traveling space-A.  Sometimes that took a while.

Here's a C-130 in Desert camo from Iran at Little Rock:

[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/ikar_photos/a/bd48272f-5c00-452e-bf7c-8f0b3c39e1e5/p/b3a09bcf-e9b6-4eee-9948-bf6a7de29bc4][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/cc4/ikar_photos/C-130/scan0021.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/ikar_photos/a/bd48272f-5c00-452e-bf7c-8f0b3c39e1e5/p/a7ac7f23-6bc1-483c-bb51-791e961ea7d1][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/cc4/ikar_photos/C-130/scan0018.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

They are replacing the desert tanks with a couple of our jungle colored tanks because the crew screwed up and had to return home to explain what happened.

 

[ikar]

try this again.

[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/ikar_photos/a/bd48272f-5c00-452e-bf7c-8f0b3c39e1e5/p/b3a09bcf-e9b6-4eee-9948-bf6a7de29bc4][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/cc4/ikar_photos/C-130/scan0021.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/ikar_photos/a/bd48272f-5c00-452e-bf7c-8f0b3c39e1e5/p/360c2bae-eb91-4437-874f-8bf936b5d012][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/cc4/ikar_photos/ikar_photos%202/.highres/scan0018.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[Hajo L.]

 

 

Just the plain text, without html-coding...

 

 

HAJO

 

 

[Niels]

On 9/13/2020 at 5:33 AM, KursadA said:

Folks, what's the story behind this one? Can anyone identify the unit markings on it?

 

 

You will find a picture of this one in "Mighty MAC" by Francillion, Lewis and Dunn, ISBN 0-85045-985-0 
The top picture is the one that is in the book, and it's a C-130E, the unit is the 435TAW, Military Airlift Command, based at Rhein-Main AB, Germany, USAFE.
They were used to fly supplies and supporting USAFE operations between Europe and the Middle East according to the caption. The color scheme created scheduling issues, as the dessert painted Herc's wasn't reserved for flights between Europe and the ME, so you would sometimes see dessert camo Herc flying support missions in the green Europe  and vice-versa😉

Edited September 27, 2020 by Niels

[ikar]

I didn't know you could do that.  What did you do exactly?  I'm not that good with computers.

 

This particular C-130 was from Iran, back when the Sha was still in charge.  Countries would send people to Little rock for some type of classes.  This crew made the mistake of not knowing that their pylon tanks were full.  Somehow they flew all the way over here and when they landed they did it thinking the tanks were empty and adjusted for that.  The mechanics told us they hit so hard that they damaged the tanks and some of the wing on impact.  The crew never attended school because the Sha was notified of the incident and ordered the crew to return ASAP.  That had to be a ugly meeting.

[Trojan Thunder]

10 hours ago, ikar said:

I didn't know you could do that.  What did you do exactly?  I'm not that good with computers.

 

This particular C-130 was from Iran, back when the Sha was still in charge.  Countries would send people to Little rock for some type of classes.  This crew made the mistake of not knowing that their pylon tanks were full.  Somehow they flew all the way over here and when they landed they did it thinking the tanks were empty and adjusted for that.  The mechanics told us they hit so hard that they damaged the tanks and some of the wing on impact.  The crew never attended school because the Sha was notified of the incident and ordered the crew to return ASAP.  That had to be a ugly meeting.

It is due to the forum software update, it does not recognise the full FLICKR or Photobucket 'BBcode links.  you just need to post the part between 'http' and '.jpg'

[ikar]

Thanks.  I take it that includes the :// too as well as the . before jpg.