The aircraft, sporting an exotic camouflage paint scheme, made a stop in Pisa before continuing to Ovda, Israel.
A pretty interesting visitor landed at Pisa Airport on Jul. 6, 2020: a Brazilian Air Force C-130M Hercules, registration FAB 2476.
Before being converted to the M standard, this C-130 was an H model, serving with the 46^ Brigata Aerea (Air Brigade) of the Italian Air Force, out of the very same Pisa Airport, with registration MM61997. In fact, starting in 2001, the Brazilian Air Force received the first of ten Italian C-130Hs, acquired from the Aeronautica Militare Italiana that replaced the “legacy” Hercules aircraft with the new “Super Hercules” J models.
C-130M is the designation for the locally modified and upgraded C-130H.
According to the Italian aviation photographer Marco Papa, the Brazilian C-130M arrived to Pisa from Recife via Las Palmas.
On the following day, Jul. 7, the aircraft, flying as BRS51, flew to Ovda, Israel. During its ferry flight across Italy and the Mediterranean Sea, the Hercules, belonging to the 1° Grupo de Transporte de Tropa (1º GTT), could be tracked online on ADSBExchange.org, by means of its ADS-B/Mode S transponder.
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The aircraft returned from Israel via Pisa on Jul. 9, 2020: the reason for the short trip to Ovda, is unknown.
Interestingly, the very same aircraft was heavily involved in firefighting activities, using the the MAFFS (Modular Airborne Fire Fighting) 1 system against Amazon fires in summer 2019:
Two Brazilian Air Force Hercules using the MAFFS (Modular Airborne Fire Fighting) 1 system are bidding to quell the Amazon fires. Thats a tall task for two aircraft. Operated by 1/1 GT they started flying out of Porto Velho on August 24. Example here is C-130M 2476. @portalfab pic.twitter.com/D24vgvkKUx
— Alan Warnes (@warnesyworld) August 26, 2019
The Aviationist’ s contributor Claudio Tramontin took the images of the quite rare visitor during its visit to Pisa on Jul. 6, 2020, that you can find in this post.
