Following earlier rumors, Turkey has reportedly purchased twelve C-130J Hercules transport aircraft which have been in storage since their retirement from Royal Air Force service.
The C-130J Hercules was retired from the Royal Air Force in June 2023 after 24 years of service, the UK having been the launch customer for the upgraded Hercules. Since the drawdown of the type, retired airframes have been stored at Cambridge Airport in South East England with Marshall Aerospace, a major contractor for C-130 maintenance work.
Five airframes, among the first to have been retired, were sold to Bangladesh in 2018. The last of these was delivered in July of this year following refurbishment and upgrades. These were non-stretched C-130J airframes, designated Hercules C5 in UK service. Another C5 airframe was sold to the U.S. Navy for use as the support aircraft for the Blue Angels display team, and a further two were purchased by Bahrain.
Of the fifteen Hercules aircraft stored at Cambridge, two are Hercules C5 and the other thirteen are Hercules C4 – the UK designation for the fifteen feet longer C-130J-30 Hercules model. The remaining two aircraft from the RAF order of 25 were both written off in Iraq – one in 2007, and one in 2017.
With thanks to Scramble, it now seems that rumors circulating earlier in 2024 regarding the Turkish purchase of twelve of these aircraft have been confirmed. Turkey’s existing fleet of C-130s, of the C-130B and C-130E variants, have undergone a life extension program known as ERCIYES.
Though they are the oldest of all C-130J airframes, with the correct maintenance works these ex-RAF C-130Js do have a significant amount of life left. Their retirement from UK service was a controversial decision, backtracking on an earlier promise to maintain the final fleet of fourteen through to 2035. The RAF’s dedicated transport fleet is now consolidated on the Airbus A400M and Boeing C-17A Globemaster III.
Also an operator of the Airbus A400M, with ten aircraft in service and a further six rumored to be in the pipeline, the Turkish Air Force’s airlift capability leans further towards the tactical end of the spectrum compared to the RAF’s larger strategic airlifters. The nation does not have any C-17s for high-end strategic lift, meaning this task must be delegated to the A400M, but does possess a significant tactical airlift fleet of 45 CN-235Ms in addition to its existing C-130s. It should be noted, however, that a number of these CN-235Ms are equipped for intelligence missions, VIP transport, or medical evacuation flights, rather than being a dedicated transport force.
Reportedly, a small number of Transall C-160s also remain in service in the intelligence role, but news on these aircraft has been quiet since a crash landing in Jan. 2024.
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Turkey has operated the C-130 since 1964, when its first four C-130Es were delivered. The fleet grew slowly with more C-130Es until 1991 when six ex U.S. Air Force C-130Bs were purchased. Another six C-130Es were then acquired from Saudi Arabia in 2011. Thirteen C-130Es remain in service along with the six C-130Bs, all operated by 222 ‘Alev’ squadron from Erkilet International Airport.
The ERCIYES upgrade sees the entire fleet fitted with digital cockpits and heavily upgraded avionics, including night vision compatible displays. Modernized anti-collision and navigation systems will improve safety while new automated computer systems will reduce pilot workload and allow the full crew complement to reduce from five to four. The aircraft will now be compatible with modern aviation standards such as Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) and Category II instrument landing systems (ILS). Tactical datalink standard Link 16 has also been installed.
After the upgrade process, C-130Bs become C-130BM and C-130Es become C-130EM, with a projected service life into the 2040s. The first aircraft to enter ERCIYES did so in 2008, with the eleventh aircraft completed in 2022, making the project a very slow burn. It is therefore possible that some of the airframes that have not yet been upgraded may be supplanted by the C-130Js, rather than continuing the investment into what are, in some cases, sixty year old aircraft.
The Turkish Air Force suffered heavily following the attempted coup of 2016, the aftermath of which saw hundreds of highly trained pilots dismissed from service. Recovering from such a loss would take years, and there are likely still some ongoing effects from this. An additional setback was the loss of the country’s F-35 order, which was suspended by the United States in 2019 after the delivery of Russian made S-400 surface to air missile systems. Recent days have seen Turkish officials commenting on their desire to restart this acquisition, but this is likely to be a long process.
In the meantime, Turkey will modernize its fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons using domestic industry. It has also flown a prototype for an apparent fifth generation fighter aircraft, a highly ambitious project.
Full footage of Turkey’s nationally produced fifth generation fighter jet KAAN’s maiden flight pic.twitter.com/UGDClvcnOt
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) February 21, 2024
Perhaps most famously, the Turkish aviation industry is garnering a reputation for successful and affordable unmanned aircraft designs. Some fellow NATO members have procured the Bayraktar TB2 UAV which has seen extensive combat service over Syria, in Ukraine and in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict. A naval variant was recently shown operating from TCG Anadolu, the Turkish Navy’s new dedicated drone carrier, and newer, more advanced designs have seen the light of day.
