Air Force Hercules do final Northland fly over before retirement

The Air Force’s C-130H Hercules fleet has been retired from service and have been flying over the country as a final farewell.

After 60 years of serving the country, the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s C-130H Hercules fleet have been retired from service and have been flying over the country as their final farewell.

The workhorse planes covered a wide range of missions, from title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-zealand-air-force-make-medical-evacuation-flight-from-antarctica-in-dark-land-on-ice-runway/QG7EGWC3RJGADHGDNQC5RZDM5Y/">Antarctic rescues to flying in combat zones, search and rescue missions, delivering aid, and assisting disaster relief. The fleet of five flew for 155,000 hours of flight time, more than 17 years in total, and 100,000 landings since they came into service in 1965.

The C-130H Hercules arrived in New Zealand in 1965 and was almost immediately deployed to the Vietnam War, transporting army detachments to the country.

Four of the aircraft will retire to RNZAF base in Woodbourne, and the fifth would go to the Air Force Museum at Wigram.

The fleet of five C-130H Hercules ceased flying last Friday, but first they took off in farewell flights across the country, including across Northland.

Two of the Royal NZ Air Force C-130H Hercules that are retiring after 60 years service did a final fly over of the Northland, including Kaitāia, above, last Wednesday

As the sun sets on the fleet, people across the country got to look up to the skies last week to see them on their final fly over.

Last Wednesday a pair of Hercules took off from Whenuapai Airport at 1.30pm for their final flight over Northland, flying over Warkworth, Mangawhai Heads, Ruakākā, Whangārei, Paihia, Kerikeri, Taupō Bay, Cable Bay, Kaitāia, Ahipara, Opononi and Dargaville.

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

“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.”

He said the Hercules had clocked up midwinter Antarctic rescues in minus 35C 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,” 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.