By Marina Malenic
The Pentagon has begun studying how it will replace its heavily used and aging fleet of 10 LC-130 ski planes, which fly all of the heavy cargo missions for U.S. scientists in Antarctica, a top Air Force commander in the region said last week.
“The trend is for more LC-130 operations, and the other trend is accelerated aging of the fleet,” Air Force Col. Paul Sheppard, speaking from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, told Pentagon public affairs. Sheppard serves as the commander of the 13th Air Expeditionary Group and as deputy commander, Joint Task Force/Support Forces Antarctica.
The task force leads Operation Deep Freeze, which offers military support to the National Science Foundation on the continent. The support includes coordinating strategic airlift, emergency response and aeromedical evacuation. The military team includes two flying squadrons–one of LC-130s and one of C-17s–as well as a naval component of surface support that includes an ice-hardened fuel tanker and an ice-hardened cargo vessel. Approximately 50 Navy cargo handlers act as a longshoremen and stevedores.
The National Science Foundation recently completed a new South Pole Station. As a result, Sheppard says he sees “no diminished hunger for our support.”
“In the ’90s, we figured our 10 airplanes would have to do 225 missions in Antarctica,” he explained. “The South Pole Station blossomed into something much greater than was ever envisioned, and now we’re doing over 400 missions on the continent–nearly double the workload we expected when we first picked up the program a little over 10 years ago.
“So we’re accelerating the aging of the fleet, just through use,” he added. “And we think we’ll have–in six to eight years we’ll have some of the airplanes beyond their service flight, and we’ll have some problems.”
At the same time, the hunger for LC-130 operations across the continent is not diminishing, according to Sheppard. He said the National Science Foundation is “eager to spread out farther across the continent.”
Sheppard said the fuel that has to be delivered to the South Pole alone “would take up all of our sorties” if it wasn’t for traverse supporting fuel deliveries. The National Science Foundation has set up a land traverse from the shore to the South Pole Station for fuel delivery, freeing up the LC-130 fleet to conduct more deep-field exploration.
“And exploration’s going to continue, and the need for the medium airlift, the LC-130…is always going to be there,” he added.
Sheppard said the “obvious choice” for a future support platform would be to replace the LC-130H variants with a J-model. He said the LC-130J would be a “generational leap” in technology and capability. Lockheed Martin [LMT] is the prime contractor for the C-130J.
“But as of now, we don’t have anything on the drawing board,” he said. “We’re starting the conversations and getting the factual data together of–objective numbers on what we think the life expectancy is going to be on the fleet, given the current utilization rates.”
The colonel warned that eventually the airplanes will begin showing micro cracks in the wings, which will lead to groundings.
“So we need to anticipate that, lead it, and start getting the next-generation aircraft identified and funded,” he said. “And, of course, ‘funded’ is going to be the key word there.”