Lockheed Martin rolls out first France’s C-130J-30 aircraft out of paint shop

[Zarvan]

Photo by Lockheed Martin
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By Dylan Malyasov -
Oct 20, 2017
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Lockheed Martin has rolled the first C-130J-30 military transport plane out of the paint shop for French Air Force.

The contracts awarded on 1 December are for USD133.4 million and USD36.6 million, and cover the procurement of two stretched C-130J-30 airlifters and for configuration changes to two C-130J-30 airlifters and two KC-130J tankers respectively.

Work on the contract will be performed at Marietta, Ga. U.S. government officials expect the work to be done by Aug. 30, 2020. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is listed as the contracting activity.

According to the Janes, the French Air Force is purchasing four C/KC-130J aircraft to supplement its ageing Transall C-160s, and to compensate for delays to the Airbus Defence and Space A400M transport aircraft and the low availability of its current fleet of C-130Hs.

Photo by Lockheed Martin

Photo by Lockheed Martin

http://defence-blog.com/news/lockhe...ces-c-130j-30-aircraft-out-of-paint-shop.html

 

[Taygibay]

Just to add some context, France has had Hercs H-type
for a long time, mostly for use by the Special Forces.
This is thus not a singular acquisition ... except that :

The particular reason however is not given by the piece and
and that is that the A400M is not able to refuel helicopters at
least for now due to turbulences created by the huge propellers.

As this was a capacity asked for of the program, Airbus is still
trying to fix it but in the meanwhile ( that could run for a couple
years or never ), there was no avoiding buying an existing plane.

Great day to you Zarvan and all, Tay.

 

[Sankpal]

@Zarvan
You are a truly great contributer for pdf.