The bastard and wear wolf Hercules – still in use

The Swedish Air Force is one of the oldest in the world. It was added in 1926 through a merger of army and navy aircraft. With the extremely scarce funds available, priority was given to reconnaissance flights, then hunting flights. The school flight had to be towed with old-fashioned equipment and transport flights were never mentioned. A few smaller transport aircraft of the types Junkers F 13 and Junkers W 33/34 were acquired in the 1930s to be used as ambulance aircraft. After the outbreak of war in 1939, the need for transport aircraft became urgent, not least due to the creation of a large number of war bases, spread throughout the country from north to south. The need for transport of personnel and equipment became very great. To meet the need to some extent, a relatively large number of aircraft of varying types were leased from AB Aerotransport, and then above all five Junkers Ju 52 / 3m, as well as various smaller aircraft from civilian owners. These emergency solutions to meet the needs of air transport continued even after the war.

They soon realized the need for their own transport aircraft to, among other things, connect Sweden’s many war bases with personnel and equipment transports. An emergency solution was to modify about forty Junkers Ju 86K (previously used as bombers with the designation B 3).

In the early 1950s, used Douglas DC-3s were purchased from domestic aviation, which were given the designation Tp 79. In total, there were eight, which were in service for a full 35 years. Some were used to shoot down paratroopers, a task that would later be taken over by Hercules. In 1955, 16 smaller transport aircraft of the English type Tp 83 Hunting Percival Pembroke were procured, which became the first real transport aircraft that the air force acquired in larger numbers. The types of aircraft listed were characterized by limited cargo capacity, limited speed resources and limited range.

Peeked at American Lockheed C-130 Hercules

The Air Force began to look for a type of aircraft that better responded to new demands for better cargo capacity and to move larger troop units between different parts of the country quickly and at short notice. Among other things, foreign types such as the French-German C-160 Transall and Breguet 941 were studied, as well as some Russian types that, however, were still only on the drawing board. From Canada, a Tp 55 de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou was rented on trial, which was the air force’s first real transport aircraft with a ramp in the tail for fast loading and unloading and for parachuting troops and equipment. The experiments with the aircraft were mainly successful, but still showed that the type had certain performance limitations, not least in terms of load capacity and range.

Some far-sighted men in the air force, led by flight director Lars Olausson, then began to glance at the American Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a four-engine bull with good load capacity, long range and which was also fast. Olausson, however, had to fight for his position that the C-130 Hercules was the only option. The criticism was mostly that the aircraft was too large for Swedish conditions, that it did not fit in existing hangars, that it could not cope with the narrow course radii on the war airfields’ taxiways, and the like. However, the Swedish Air Force and the Royal Swedish Air Force gave in and it was decided to rent a copy from the USA on trial.

Hercules began to be designed as early as 1951 with the aim of producing a larger transport aircraft with the possibility of operating from unrepaired airports, such as gravel, grass and snow. In a first draft, the aircraft was equipped with piston engines, but they were soon replaced with turboprop engines, somewhat simplified jet engines where the through shaft was extended forward and fitted with propellers. Two prototypes made their first flight on the same day, August 23, 1954, from Lockheed’s plant in Burbank, California. The construction was very successful. The C-130 was able to fly both fast and slow, the latter an important feature for being able to drop materiel and paratroopers. The load capacity was 20 tons or 90 soldiers. The same year, Lockheed received an order for a 75 C-130A for the US Air Force. The type would gradually be developed in several different versions. The version that Sweden finally took an interest in was the C-130E, which, unlike the first versions, was equipped with navigation radar and the ability to carry extra tanks under the wings.

In addition to Sweden, Hercules has over the years been sold to some 40 countries’ air forces around the world. Even purely civilian variants have been manufactured for various air freight companies. Since 1954, just over 2,500 Hercules have been manufactured. The production of this seemingly indestructible and robust aircraft type is still in progress. In connection with the evacuation of the then Saigon in April 1975, a South Vietnamese Hercules was flown to Thailand with no less than 452 people on board.

Sweden’s first C-130 arrived at the flotilla F 7 in Såtenäs in March 1965. The aircraft was unpainted and provided with Swedish crown marks but with the American Air Force’s serial number on the fin. The designation was TP 84. With a mixed Swedish / American crew, the first international flight was carried out in June 1965 to Italy, with cadets from the cadet school F 20 in Uppsala. I was one of them. It was a strange experience to sit down on the tent chair-like long seats with backrests of braided nylon straps and to see the free-running rudder ropes moving in the roof. Later in the year, the aircraft was purchased and had the code “71” painted on the fin.

The experience gained with this Europe’s first C-130 was very good. In particular, the load capacity was estimated at 91 passengers, 56 combat-equipped paratroopers or 20 tonnes of cargo. For ambulances, there are 72 aircraft stretchers. The cruising speed is 550 kilometers per hour and the range is 380 km. A second Hercules followed as early as 1969, after which six more aircraft were acquired, one in 1975 and five in 1981. The first of the E-version was later supplemented by the modern H-version with stronger Allison T56-A-15 turboprop engines of 4,910 hp each. Later, all eight aircraft would have the same engines. The aircraft were all based on Såtenäs and the 71st transport aviation division. A special hangar was built for this purpose, the then largest cantilevered building of its kind in Sweden.

Used by the UN and the Red Cross

In addition to the purely military needs for transport, TP 84 has also been used by the UN and the Red Cross for humanitarian efforts. During the Biafra conflict in 1968, one of the planes was leased by the Red Cross with the civil registration SE-XBT. Humanitarian efforts in recent years include the evacuation of Swedes from the tsunami disaster in Thailand in 2005 and from the Taliban-ravaged Afghanistan. Over the years, the aircraft have also received operational assignments in hotspots around the world, not least during the civil wars in the Balkans. The crews have been drilled in tactical flight and the aircraft have been equipped with countermeasures of various kinds, including torches against heat-seeking robots. Another type of effort which made the Swedish people open their eyes to TP 84 Hercules, deserves to be mentioned. It occurred in 1973 when Sweden and Malta were to play World Cup qualifiers in football down in Malta. Swedish Television could not afford to carry down its then awkward OB equipment, but then the air force saved the event for football-hungry Swedes by flying the stuff down in a Hercules.

Of the original eight TP 84, two of the three first delivered copies, 841 and 843, were stored in England to be transferred in parts to Sweden for scrapping. Strong forces are in motion to preserve for the Air Force Museum the front body of the unique 841, the Air Force’s and Europe’s oldest Hercules. The Air Force’s second Hercules, 842, has been converted into a flying gas station.

Finally, a few words about how Hercules is to fly. From the beginning, the pilots were experienced former fighter pilots, while for a few years now pilots have been recruited from the basic flight training in the air force. One of the masters of TP 84 was Thorbjörn Engback, who had previously flown both Draken and Viggen. After 14 years as a Herculean pilot and 3,500 flying hours on the type, he sums up his impressions as follows:

– I experienced the aircraft as very large and that was compared to the aircraft I have flown before. At first I thought it was strange and a little difficult to sit quite high above the ground and have the main wheels so far behind, says Thorbjörn Engback, and continues:

– Flying Hercules turned out to be nice, despite the plane’s weight and size. A much larger rudder deflection was required to make the aircraft react and a rudder was also required so that there would not be too much movement.

After about 1,200 hours in the right seat as helmsman, he was promoted to commander.

– TP 84 is very useful for tactical flying, which I applied partly under the air bridge to Sarajevo in 1994, and partly and later in several missions in Afghanistan. Hercules is an aircraft with good aerodynamics, load capacity and combatability, despite the 1950s construction, he says.