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...regarded STOL capable aircraft" doesn't bear close inspection. Granted, the Hercules wasn't designed as a STOL aircraft, but in the literal meaning of short takeoff and landing one can hardly ask for more from an airplane of its size. (The only sizeable non-STOL designed airplane I have flown which could better the C-130s ability is the Grumman Albatross amphibian, a smaller machine with a dissimilar mission.) Runways in Vietnam were classified as Type 1,2, and 3 for each airlift aircraft, C-7, C-123, and C-130--Type 1 being the minimum. For the 0-130, Type 1 was 2,500 feet long, not 3,500 feet as Kennedy states, while 3,500 feet was Type 3 for all three craft. I have landed and stopped C-130Es on a variety of badly surfaced short peapatches, most ly in Vietnam. Coming to a dead stop at the midpoint of 3,000 feet of runway, for example, is nothing exceptional for a reasonably qualified Herk pilot.

A minor technical point: Kennedy refers to "the A and B models." So have I referred to that final letter, so has every other pilot in just about every Air Force airplane. But cursory inspection of various aircraft forms will show the abbreviation "T/M/S," for "Type/Model/Series." For the Hercules I flew, the type is C, the model is 130, and the series is E. Of interest to rivet-counters and academics, mostly. Also makes a pretty good basis for bar bets.

Col. Robert J. Powers, USAF (Ret.)

AMST Author Replies

I believe the C-130 has been a very good aircraft, and we now have the C-130J-30. If I were a true, diehard...

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