RNZAF C-130H Hercules Fleet Retires After 60 Years Of Service

For 60 years the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) C-130H Hercules fleet has served New Zealand at home and around the world and now the mighty workhorses are about to take their final bow.

Friday is the official retirement date for the fleet of five transport aircraft. To mark the occasion the fleet has recently carried out flypasts over Northland and the central North Island.

A flypast over the South Island is planned for Monday and Tuesday next week, and four of the aircraft will then go to RNZAF Base Woodbourne.

The RNZAF is planning on having one aircraft go to the Air Force Museum at Wigram and is currently working through the delivery options for that.

The fleet clocked up more than 155,000 accident-free flying hours and nearly 100,000 landings at home and around the world.

It’s an incredible record considering some of the challenging and often inhospitable operating environments,” says Chief of Air Force, Air Vice-Marshal Darryn Webb.

“Beyond the vast accumulation of data lies mission purpose, and for many, life-changing assistance provided by those who support, maintain and operate our C-130H aircraft.”

Air Vice-Marshal Webb said the Hercules had clocked up midwinter Antarctic rescues in minus 35 degree temperatures, many disaster-response missions across the Indo-Pacific, short-notice evacuation tasks, such as Kabul in 2021, and operated in many combat zones.

“As the crews recount these missions throughout every corner of the globe, it is the unique tasks that often get talked about the most, such as the recovery of victims from Mt Erebus aircraft disaster in Antarctica or loading 120 people out of Banda Aceh after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami where one survivor brought his pet monkey,” Air Vice-Marshal Webb said.

“There was air dropping a bulldozer to the remote Pitcairn Islands in the Pacific, moving crocodiles and an elephant to wildlife reserves, and my own personal experience of a live and very unhappy pig as a gift from Bougainville Islanders.”

In 2020, the Government announced the ageing fleet would be replaced by five new C-130J-30 Hercules. The last of the new aircraft arrived in December, allowing the C-130H to take a well-earned retirement.

RNZAF C-130H Hercules history:

The first three Hercules were delivered to No. 40 Squadron at RNZAF Base Auckland in 1965 and were quickly put to work transporting personnel from NZ Army 161 Battery and aid to Vietnam.

That same year, a Hercules with personnel and supplies made its first flight to Antarctica.

By 1969, the aircraft had proven so valuable in providing strategic and tactical airlift capabilities a further two were purchased, bringing the fleet to five aircraft.

The RNZAF’s Hercules have since been to almost every corner of the world, delivering troops, cargo and humanitarian aid into conflict and disaster zones.

In the 1970s the Hercules was the first RNZAF aircraft to visit mainland China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The fleet also provided service in Pakistan, Cambodia and Bangladesh.

In the 1990s, two aircraft and supporting crews deployed to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and with United Nations and other peacekeeping support in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Uganda, the Persian Gulf and Rwanda.

The aircraft also helped sustain more than 1000 New Zealand troops stationed in East Timor around the turn of the century.

In 2001 the aircraft deployed detachments of the 1st New Zealand Special Air Service Regiment to Afghanistan, which was the beginning of a 20-year NZDF deployment to the country, including troop rotations in and out of the Bamyan province.

Closer to home, the fleet has supported disaster response missions on an enduring basis, including the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, Cyclones Pam and Winston in the Pacific, the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and 2016 Kaikoura earthquake and more recently Cyclone Gabrielle.

The fleet has also transported personnel to Europe to further support Ukraine against the Russia invasion and assisted in the evacuation of refugees from Afghanistan.

Over the years, the aircraft have received a number of modifications and upgrades, with the most recent being a Life Extension Programme in 2005. That involved an extensive avionics upgrade of the flight deck and structural refurbishment, upon which the aircraft were re-designated the C-130H(NZ).

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