Mark Sman
03-03-2005, 05:56 PM
By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- The biggest plane ever to land on an aircraft carrier, a four-engine turbo prop transport, has become a museum piece after the short-lived experiment, but the pilot who flew those missions says the Navy is showing renewed interest 42 years later.
The hulking Marine Corps cargo plane, configured as a tanker, is the newest addition to the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola. The KC-130 made 21 full-stop landings aboard the USS Forrestal in November 1963.
The pilot, retired Rear Adm. James H. Flatley III, recalled Thursday that his colleagues doubted such a big plane could land on a carrier. The KC-130 has a 132-foot wingspan and the total weight, including cargo and fuel, ranged from 40 to 60 tons during Flatley's landings.
The C-2, which is now used to deliver cargo to carriers, has an 80-foot wingspan and a maximum weight of 28.7 tons.
"Everybody kind of laughed about (the KC-130) and said `We may look at it around the field here, but that thing's never going to the ship," Flatley said from his home in Mount Pleasant, S.C. "Six weeks later we were all done."
Navy officials summoned Flatley to the Pentagon to discuss the project about six months ago. Today's larger carriers could more easily land C-130s, but their main interest is for the proposed "sea basing" of troops and equipment on platforms or large ships instead of in foreign countries.
Such sea bases could include runways slightly longer than the Forrestal's 1,017-foot flight deck.
"You could run C-130s in and out of there all day," Flatley said.
The experiment began with a series of touch-and-go landings off Jacksonville and then full-stop landings off Cape Cod, Mass., all without benefit of a tailhook that usually brings carrier planes to a stop.
Instead, Flatley and his two crew members flew the plane slower than normal before hitting the brakes and reversing the engines to bring it to a stop in only about 275 feet.
"We were standing, literally standing, on the brakes before we hit down," Flatley said.
The plane also had plenty of power to get back into the air without a catapult or rockets sometimes used for short takeoffs.
Flatley, now 71, went on to set a record with 1,608 carrier landings, mostly in jets, that stood for 10 years. The KC-130 saw service in Vietnam, as did Flatley, and other war zones, most recently Afghanistan and Iraq.
A variant of the C-130 Hercules, Flatley's carrier plane made its last flight Tuesday from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station near San Diego to become part of the museum's outdoor aircraft display at Pensacola Naval Air Station.
Flatley was a fighter pilot like his father, a Word War II Navy ace. He was fresh out of test pilot school at the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Md., when he got the C-130 assignment although he had never before flown anything with more than one engine.
The C-1 Trader that normally delivered supplies to carriers at sea was too small to haul large spare parts such as a jet engine. The Navy needed something bigger for carriers in the Indian Ocean far from friendly ports.
Shortly after the tests, the Navy reduced its Indian Ocean presence and the C-2 Greyhound, a larger cargo plane built for carrier use, was beginning to replace the C-1, Flatley said.
"The realization was `Gee, we know we can do this, we don't need it right now and, besides, the pilots that fly C-130s don't want to do this,'" he said. "So they just tucked it away on a top shelf somewhere to use later."
The Navy kept Flatley's feat a secret for about a year but then awarded him a Distinguished Flying Cross. Co-pilot W.W. "Smokey" Stovall, and flight engineer Ed Brennan, both now deceased, received Air Medals.
Another flight engineer, Al Seive, who took turns with Brennan, went unrecognized until last year when the KC-130 flew to his hometown, Cincinnati, for a belated Air Medal presentation.
Associated Press Writer
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- The biggest plane ever to land on an aircraft carrier, a four-engine turbo prop transport, has become a museum piece after the short-lived experiment, but the pilot who flew those missions says the Navy is showing renewed interest 42 years later.
The hulking Marine Corps cargo plane, configured as a tanker, is the newest addition to the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola. The KC-130 made 21 full-stop landings aboard the USS Forrestal in November 1963.
The pilot, retired Rear Adm. James H. Flatley III, recalled Thursday that his colleagues doubted such a big plane could land on a carrier. The KC-130 has a 132-foot wingspan and the total weight, including cargo and fuel, ranged from 40 to 60 tons during Flatley's landings.
The C-2, which is now used to deliver cargo to carriers, has an 80-foot wingspan and a maximum weight of 28.7 tons.
"Everybody kind of laughed about (the KC-130) and said `We may look at it around the field here, but that thing's never going to the ship," Flatley said from his home in Mount Pleasant, S.C. "Six weeks later we were all done."
Navy officials summoned Flatley to the Pentagon to discuss the project about six months ago. Today's larger carriers could more easily land C-130s, but their main interest is for the proposed "sea basing" of troops and equipment on platforms or large ships instead of in foreign countries.
Such sea bases could include runways slightly longer than the Forrestal's 1,017-foot flight deck.
"You could run C-130s in and out of there all day," Flatley said.
The experiment began with a series of touch-and-go landings off Jacksonville and then full-stop landings off Cape Cod, Mass., all without benefit of a tailhook that usually brings carrier planes to a stop.
Instead, Flatley and his two crew members flew the plane slower than normal before hitting the brakes and reversing the engines to bring it to a stop in only about 275 feet.
"We were standing, literally standing, on the brakes before we hit down," Flatley said.
The plane also had plenty of power to get back into the air without a catapult or rockets sometimes used for short takeoffs.
Flatley, now 71, went on to set a record with 1,608 carrier landings, mostly in jets, that stood for 10 years. The KC-130 saw service in Vietnam, as did Flatley, and other war zones, most recently Afghanistan and Iraq.
A variant of the C-130 Hercules, Flatley's carrier plane made its last flight Tuesday from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station near San Diego to become part of the museum's outdoor aircraft display at Pensacola Naval Air Station.
Flatley was a fighter pilot like his father, a Word War II Navy ace. He was fresh out of test pilot school at the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Md., when he got the C-130 assignment although he had never before flown anything with more than one engine.
The C-1 Trader that normally delivered supplies to carriers at sea was too small to haul large spare parts such as a jet engine. The Navy needed something bigger for carriers in the Indian Ocean far from friendly ports.
Shortly after the tests, the Navy reduced its Indian Ocean presence and the C-2 Greyhound, a larger cargo plane built for carrier use, was beginning to replace the C-1, Flatley said.
"The realization was `Gee, we know we can do this, we don't need it right now and, besides, the pilots that fly C-130s don't want to do this,'" he said. "So they just tucked it away on a top shelf somewhere to use later."
The Navy kept Flatley's feat a secret for about a year but then awarded him a Distinguished Flying Cross. Co-pilot W.W. "Smokey" Stovall, and flight engineer Ed Brennan, both now deceased, received Air Medals.
Another flight engineer, Al Seive, who took turns with Brennan, went unrecognized until last year when the KC-130 flew to his hometown, Cincinnati, for a belated Air Medal presentation.