C-130J Super Hercules
ICAO C30JThe current-generation Hercules, and usually the most numerous military type in the air worldwide. Live positions for every C-130J transmitting now.
Flying right now
Live · 30s- C2003 26,000 ft 2003 🇺🇸 United States
- OTIS18 13,050 ft 170271 🇺🇸 United States
- ANVIL11 9,900 ft 19-5934 🇺🇸 United States
- TACO23 7,050 ft 16-5895 🇺🇸 United States
- C2011 6,025 ft 2011 🇺🇸 United States
- C2004 4,975 ft 2004 🇺🇸 United States
- E43143 4,975 ft 04-3143 🇺🇸 United States
- 09-5711 2,050 ft 09-5711 🇺🇸 United States
- STALK47 Ground 09-6210 🇺🇸 United States
- C2002 Ground 2002 🇺🇸 United States
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- Lockheed Martin
- Role
- Tactical airlift
- Class
- L4T — Landplane, 4 turboprop engines
- Crew
- 3 — two pilots and a loadmaster
- First flight
- 5 April 1996
- In service
- 1999
Operators airborne
About the C-130J Super Hercules
If one type dominates the live count on any given day, it is normally this one. Twenty-odd air forces fly the C-130J, it is used for everything from parachute training to hurricane reconnaissance, and a great deal of that flying happens in airspace with dense ADS-B coverage.
The J is a deeper change from the earlier Hercules than the name suggests: new engines, six-bladed composite propellers, a two-pilot glass cockpit and no flight engineer. The airframe outline is familiar, the systems behind it are not.
The designator C30J covers the stretched C-130J-30 as well as the special mission variants — HC-130J rescue tankers, KC-130J refuellers, EC-130J broadcast aircraft — so the aircraft on this page are doing quite different jobs from each other.
Callsign prefixes
- RCH
- Reach — US Air Mobility Command logistics runs
- KING
- US Air Force combat rescue, typically HC-130J
- RRR
- Ascot — Royal Air Force
- CTM
- Cotam — French Air and Space Force
How to recognise it
- —Six scimitar-shaped propeller blades. The older C-130 has four straight ones, and this is the quickest way to separate them.
- —High wing, four turboprops, and the squared-off rear ramp that has been the Hercules silhouette since 1954.
- —Slow: typically 280 to 320 knots ground speed, well below anything with jets.
Common questions
+ What is the difference between a C-130 and a C-130J?
The J has Rolls-Royce AE 2100 engines with six-bladed propellers, a digital cockpit, and a crew of three instead of five. Externally the propellers are the giveaway. On this site the older marks appear under the separate C130 designator.
+ Why is the C-130J so often the most common type airborne?
It is widely operated, it flies short sorties so several rotations happen per day, and much of that flying is over Europe and the continental United States where ADS-B receiver coverage is dense.
+ What is a KING callsign?
KING is used by US Air Force combat search and rescue units, most often on the HC-130J, which refuels rescue helicopters in flight and can drop pararescue teams.