Luftwaffe KC-130J roll out
On 27 January 2023, the first Luftwaffe (GAF, German Air Force) KC-130J Super Hercules was rolled out at Lockheed Martin's Aeronautic production site at Marietta/Dobbins JARB (GA).
The new tanker Hercules, construction number 382-5962, will be the first of three KC-130Js for the German part of the Binational Air Transport C-130J Squadron at Base Aérienne 105 (BA105) Evreux/Fauville (France, Normandy). Most probably the aircraft will be registered 55+04.
By the end of 2023/early 2024, BATS will operate ten C-130J tanker/transport aircraft, four French and six German. All French aircraft, two C-130J-30s and two KC-130Js, have been transferred from BA123 Orléans/Bricy to Evreux in the summer of 2021. The first three GAF aircraft, all model C-130J-30, have been delivered to the binational unit.
In September 2020, Scramble Magazine first reported on the Franco-German Super Hercules squadron. On Thursday 17 September, the German Defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and the French Defence minister Florence Parly symbolically laid the foundation stone for the binational squadron.
Photo by Lockheed Martin