With the first of six new Hercules aircraft for Germany displayed at ILA 2022 (pictured), the second is to arrive in the coming days. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)
Lockheed Martin is progressing Germany's KC/C-130J Hercules programme, with the arrival of the second aircraft into Évreux-Fauville Air Base in northern France, in the coming days.
Speaking at the ILA Berlin Air Show on 22 June, Tony Frese, Lockheed Martin's vice-president, Air Mobility and Maritime Missions, said that aircraft 55+02 will arrive at the home of the joint Franco-German C-130 unit in Normandy in the coming days, with the third to follow in 2023, and the remainder by the end of 2024.
With 55+01 having been delivered in February, 55+02 is the second of three ‘stretched' C-130J-30 airlifters that Germany is contributing along with three ‘short‘ KC-130J tanker-transports to the new joint transport squadron. The French Air and Space Force is contributing two C-130J-30s and two KC-130Js.
This C-130 air transport squadron will have unrestricted exchange of aircraft, aircrews, and maintainers, as well as technical and logistical support based on a common pool of spare parts and a common service support contract. “Ten aircraft, two nations, one association – there has never been anything like this in Europe,” the Bundeswehr has previously said.
The joint air transport squadron is scheduled to achieve full operating capability in 2024–25.
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