PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - When U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Rick Rose took the new C-130 J Super Hercules “Fat Albert” model into the skies of Cambridge, England, for its first check flight July 20, the pilot said he was quite simply blown away.
Fourteen months of work put into prepping the new “Bert” for its second life as a logistical support and flight demonstration aircraft was executed to perfection, Rose said, something he recognized quickly after bringing up the wheels.
“One of the most successful, functional check flights I’ve ever done,” Rose told the News Journal. “I was the functional check pilot for the aircraft and I’ve picked up more than a few planes for different levels of maintenance to do check flights with, but when I picked this plane up, I couldn’t believe how well it ran from the start. Incredible plane, incredible aircraft. It works flawlessly.”
The Blue Angels purchased what is now the new Fat Albert from the British Royal Air Force in June 2019. Countless organizations - from NAVAIR PM207 to Lockead Martin to Marshall, the contract company that specializes in C-130 engineering projects - have had a hand in getting Bert to full functionality.
The aircraft is now in Fort Worth, Texas, and is extremely close to its Pensacola debut.
“They stripped this plane down and went from the nose of the aircraft all the way to the tail and took apart everything on this plan,” Rose explained. “Took the wings off, stripped off the paint and went through it, bolt by bolt, to make sure everything looks good, and then put it back together.”
Check flights were conducted July 20 and 28, paving the way for Fat Albert’s Aug. 4 transport flight to the U.S. Bert is currently at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth in Texas to undergo a cyclical engine inspection that must take place every 840 days.
Fat Albert’s eight-person Marine Corps crew is also spending time in Fort Worth to learn from some of the best in the business as the Bert crew prepares to permanently take the reins of the aircraft heading into the 2021 Blue Angels air show season and beyond.
“We’re still working on getting our full complement of Marines to be on their own within the Blue Angels, and to be able to maintain this aircraft properly,” Rose said. “We have an incredible maintenance crew, but they’re still working through their qualifications right now to make sure they are safe for flight and that they can work on the plane themselves.”
Rose couldn’t pinpoint a date for Fat Albert’s imminent cross-country trip to Pensacola, but ensured flight fans that it’s coming soon.
“We’re all eager to get back home and get Bert where it belongs,” Rose said. “If all the inspections go well we should be there pretty shortly. Things could change depending on how the inspections go, but we’re not thinking it takes too long.”
COMPARING THE FORMER C-130T TO THE NEW C-130J FAT ALBERT: WHAT’S DIFFERENT, NEW AND NOTICEABLE?
The new Super Hercules is tagging out the now-retired C-130T Fat Albert, which had flown with the Blues for 17 years and accumulated more than 30,000 flight hours.
On Friday, Rose broke down the performance and cosmetic differences of the two models, starting with the much-discussed new paint job.
PAINT JPB
“We kind of wanted to go with something different so you could tell it was a different aircraft, a newer aircraft,” Rose said, about the paint scheme.
The new Bert has yellow tips on the wings, two stripes down the side and a new white teardrop on top.
“It’s definitely different from the older models, and also, it goes along with the jets a little bit more,” he said. “It matches them.”
SIX-BLADED PROPELLER
“Those new props provide up to 20% more thrust compared to the old models,” Rose said. “That’s one of the biggest upgrades on the plane. You can definitely tell when we fly that plane, and when we were testing it out in England. It wants to go flying. It doesn’t take up a whole lot of runway but comparing the performance between the two, it flies like a whole ’nother aircraft, really.”
ROLLS ROYCE ENGINE
Replacing the former Allison-powered engine of past models is the C-130J’s new Rolls Royce AE-2100 engines.
“Those are what the fleet Marine Corps uses in their J models,” Rose said. “The engine and the props provide a huge amount of performance difference.”
INTERNAL HEADS-UP DISPLAY
As opposed to the old T model, which forced pilots to look down through the front window, the new Fat Albert’s heads-up display makes for a more convenient flying experience; the pilots’ eyes don’t need to refocus to look at the outside of the aircraft rather than looking down at their instrumentation.
“The heads-up display is kind of like a projector that provides everything on a piece of glass right in front of your face,” Rose said. “All of the information is right there in front of your face. So that’ll help a lot in the long run, especially when it comes time to do the demos.”
ALL-GLASS COCKPIT
All instrumentation for the pilots is on glass screens. The old steam dials that were in the T model are gone, Rose said.
“Another great upgrade,” he said. “It kind of goes along with modern aviation with normal cockpits nowadays.”
COMING HOME TO PENSACOLA
Once Bert runs through its final rounds of maintenance and testing in August in Fort Worth, it will make its long awaited arrival in Pensacola, an event Rose said should be emotional for a lot of the folks who helped get the aircraft to the point it’s at today.
“It’s been a long time coming to get this plane back to Pensacola and there have been a lot of people that have put their heart and soul into this aircraft in getting it ready to go,” Rose said. “From the people way up top in the Marine Corps and Navy to get this purchased in the first place, exploring options and thinking outside the box with how we’re going to get the Blue Angels a C-130.
“It took people like that to get the ball rolling because it could have easily been a ‘no’ from someone saying it was too difficult to get this to happen.” Rose went on. “I’m just very grateful for people exploring different options. We went with the purchase with England, awesome partnership with that country, and then it also provides a really cool story for us. And then on top of all the other people involved, the organizations that put hard work into getting it up and running in a timely experience for us. It’s just been an awesome experience.”
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