Air Force Looks to Arm C-130s, Trim Fleet to 245

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By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The Air Force is in process of mapping out the future of its fleet of C-130 Cargo planes to include a range of seeming variable or different options such as both potentially arming them for combat with cruise missiles and air dropped bombs while simultaneously retiring many of them.

The current notional plan, according to Air Force senior leaders, is to drop the number of C-130s in the fleet from 300 down to 245 to streamline the force while still covering the service’s tactical lift requirements.

“245 C-130s cover what we need for our tactical lift and includes support to the homeland,” Lt. Gen. David Nahom, Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs, told The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Armed C-130s

All of this is happening alongside a concurrent Air Force effort to more fully arm the fleet of C-130 cargo planes. There has been a lot of Air Force experimentation with arming cargo planes with palletized stacks of air dropped bombs and building various launchers and dispensers into the planes for possible attack. 

Several air drop experiments have been successful and the service is looking closely at thinking “outside of the box” and expanding the mission envelope for the aircraft.