Reportagem no jornal de anteontem. Chamou-me a atencao a idade dos pilotos e navegadores, alem daquela das aeronaves, claro
Toronto Star - Sep. 17, 2005. 10:23 AM
LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR
The Hercules C-130 transport planes first entered service in the Canadian military in 1960. This one is at CFB Trenton.
Workhorse
Pilots love flying them, but the Canadian Forces' fleet of Hercules C-130 transport planes is aging and needs replacing, Bruce Campion-Smith reports
BRUCE CAMPION-SMITH
OTTAWA BUREAU
CANADIAN FORCES BASE TRENTON—With its expansive wingspan, bulbous fuselage and four big propellers chewing the air, no one would ever mistake the lumbering Hercules transport for a sleek, agile fighter.
But don't tell Capt. Gary Moore that.
At this moment, he's got his C-130 Hercules cranked hard in a 60-degree bank turn, a mere 65 metres above the pine trees flashing past below.
Moore turns the control column hard in the other direction. Wings level, he arcs the big plane over a hill and then noses back down into the valley.
"We're able to fly down valleys quite easily and work our way through the terrain. It was designed for this," says the 42-year-old pilot, who has logged about 5,000 hours on the Hercules in places such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Afghanistan.
But this tree-top tour of central Ontario is no sightseeing flight.
Moore and his colleagues are practising what Hercules pilots are doing for real in hotspots around the world. This is tactical flying — low and fast so the enemy never hears you coming.
With a big map in one hand, Capt. James Dickinson, the navigator, hangs over Moore's left shoulder, peering through the cockpit's greenhouse-like windows, picking out the next landmark on the route — the hilltop at one o'clock, the peninsula in a small lake.
Red circles on his map denote "no-fly" zones — mink farms and "sensitive residents," two breeds who don't appreciate the majesty of a Hercules thundering low overhead.
Flying in the right seat is Maj. Dan Bouchard, a 34-year forces veteran who started out on the CF-104 Starfighter, which zipped along at twice the speed of sound. Now 53, he quips that the older he gets, the slower the planes he's given to fly.
But he's still a fighter pilot at heart: "I like it low; that's where the action is."
Today, the two pilots will be putting an old bird through her paces. Herc 319 — the transport assigned for the flight — is 40 years old, just two years younger than Moore.
Since entering the fleet in 1965, this Hercules has flown more than 41,000 hours, equal to 4 1/2 years in the air. At an age when most planes are either scrapped or parked in the museum, this transport is still flying strong.
Indeed, last week, Hercules transports were at the forefront of Canada's response to Hurricane Katrina. Hercs were used to fly navy divers — and their mountains of gear — into the devastated region.
But as Canadian soldiers are increasingly deployed around the globe — and demand on the Hercules fleet grows to support them — there are questions about how much longer the transports can do the job.
Even Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the defence staff, concedes that investments will be soon needed to preserve the capability that the Hercules offers.
"In the short-term, I'm going to have to shore up that C-130 tactical airlift fleet, without question," Hillier said earlier this summer. "We've got a lot of work to do on that C-130 fleet, which offers that huge flexibility."
A plan to purchase new aircraft to replace the older Hercs is expected to be the centrepiece of a paper to be released this fall by military commanders. The paper will lay out proposed big-ticket purchases for military hardware over the coming years.
However, recognizing the state of the Herc fleet, the military hopes to move quickly with the new purchases.
Of the 32 Hercs in the fleet, 19 were delivered between 1964 and 1967; the remaining 13 aircraft began service starting in 1974. Among them is Herc 315, which in May surpassed 45,000 hours, more than any other military Hercules.
If the CF-18 fighter is the sleek red coupe that turns heads, then the Hercules is the dull, battered pickup.
But what the Herc lacks in looks, it makes up for in sheer ability. There isn't much that hasn't been loaded in its cavernous hold, everything from jeeps and armoured vehicles to relief supplies and paratroopers.
Over the years, a child starving in Africa, a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan and the downed pilot or lost hiker praying for rescue here in Canada have all depended on the Hercs and their precious cargoes.
Moore says it's gratifying to be able to deliver a planeload of supplies to people who need it.
"In Somalia, thousands and thousands of people lined the edge of the runway looking for the food that was in the back of the plane. For months and months, we just flew food into Mogadishu," he says.
And it was there that Moore really appreciated the ability of the Hercules to operate at a rough airport.
"In Somalia, they used dirt roads as airstrips. They called it a runway. It's actually a road and a runway, depending on what vehicle is travelling on it."
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`In the short-term, I'm going to have to shore up that C-130 tactical airlift fleet'
Gen. Rick Hiller, chief of the defence staff
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Flying fighters, Bouchard spent his days practising for a mission he hoped would never come — war. Now, flying the Hercules, he's feels he's putting his training to good use.
"The one thing about the Herc that we never did on the 104 is to do something that we can say, `I feel good about my job,'" he says.
"Now, I deliver stuff to the troops in Afghanistan. I feel good about that because I know it's a worthwhile cause and that makes the job easier," says Bouchard, who will be returning to Afghanistan next month.
Even in recent weeks, the Hercs have been flying to two extremes of the globe, ferrying supplies to Canada's electronic listening post at Alert in the high Arctic and making the daily run from the desert heat of Camp Mirage, the military's base in the Middle East, into Kabul.
With its ability to fly into short, rough airstrips, good cold-weather abilities and redundant systems to ensure reliability, says veteran Hercules pilot Peter Nodwell, the plane was tailor-made for Canadian flying. The big cargo ramp makes it easy to roll big vehicles and cargo loads on and off the aircraft and even drop them by air to troops below.
"That's why it's so darn versatile," says Nodwell, a retired military pilot who now helps train new and current Hercules pilots.
Nodwell spent 25 years flying the Hercules to every continent on the globe. Asked for war stories of daring flights, Nodwell offers the ultimate compliment a pilot can pay to his plane.
"I had a lot of boring flights, which speaks well to the airplane," Nodwell says. "The missions I appreciated were the ones where the Herc did its job and did it well and I got on the ground and said, `thanks a lot.'"
That the decades-old Hercs are flying at all is a tribute to the technicians who keep the aging machines airworthy.
In one hangar here at the Trenton base, a Herc sits surrounded by scaffolding, its engines removed and access panels opened up to expose a spaghetti maze of pipes and wires as it undergoes an intensive check done after every 800 hours of flying.
In the aircraft's prime, this major checkup took just seven days; today, it takes more than 40.
"That tells you the amount of things that need fixing compared to what it was new," says Lt.-Col. Bill Lewis, who heads a maintenance squadron. "The Herc has always been the workhorse for us and as such has been a very forgiving aircraft to fly and to maintain."
In another hangar, Cpl. Patrick Myles and his fellow technicians are just finishing an engine and propellor change on Hercules 324. He calls the Herc "a damn fine plane.
"It's a testament to itself. We have some of the highest-time fliers in the world," Myles says.
His colleague Cpl. Peter Miller stands on scaffolding high off the hangar floor, putting the final touches on the connections to the newly installed Allison turbine engine.
"It keeps me busy because of the age," Miller says. "It would be a lot like an old car when you drive it so often."
Over the years, the Hercs have been transformed with more powerful engines, updated electronics and self-defence gear for protection on flights into dangerous zones like Kabul.
But the upgrades can't turn back the clock. Unless the armed forces gets moving on a formal process to replace them, there is a real possibility that the military could be without a transport aircraft to move its troops and equipment. That could have huge policy implications, says Brian MacDonald, chair of defence studies at Toronto's Royal Canadian Military Institute.
Canada could be left to "beg or borrow a ride with the Americans" or rent a commercial aircraft, like Russian transports, to deploy its military around the globe, MacDonald says.
"If you want to have an independent foreign policy based on the ability to deploy a military force using our own resources, we are in real trouble. The Herc is absolutely, totally required. It's our only airlifter that can go into a rough airfield."
The Fraser Institute recently added its voice, calling on Ottawa to replace its aging fleet with a mix of C-17 Globemaster jets for the long-haul trips and C-130Js, the newest Hercules, able to fly farther, faster and carry more cargo.
"Beyond the war-fighting and military dimensions, Canadian strategic life is vital for international humanitarian work ... There will always be a need for the lifting of supplies, equipment, and manpower on short notice," the institute said in a report.
The promised purchase of new aircraft for search and rescue duties will ease the pressure on the Hercules fleet, allowing the air force to retire 10 of the oldest aircraft.
But the report warned that the "antiquity" of the airframes is likely to be a "major problem" for future operations.
"If nothing is done to replace the current Hercules fleet, Canada risks losing its airlift capability entirely," the report said. "Important decisions must be made soon."
The low-level trip of Herc 319 ends over Prince Edward County, where the crew sets up to drop a 2,200-kg pallet to troops below. It could be a vehicle, equipment or food. But on this day, it's sand packed in plywood.
As the Hercules makes its approach to the drop zone, the big ramp at the back of the plane eases down. A green light illuminates and whoosh — the pallet disappears out the back, dropping to the ground at the end of a parachute.
"It's one of the more exciting things we do," says loadmaster Lisa Harvey.
Another load delivered on time and on target.
http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/index_e.asp
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