C-130 Lands Unarrested on an Aircraft Carrier

As awesome as it is to watch beautifully produced videos of aircraft in HD, sometimes it is nice to watch some of the old grainy videos from a long time ago.

I got this video from my dad when I found out I was being assigned to the C-130.  It is a pretty incredible video of a USMC KC-130F landing on the USS Forrestal aircraft carrier, and took place in November and October of 1963.

They performed 29 touch-and-gos, 21 unarrested full-stop landings, and 21 unassisted takeoffs.  Weighing 85,000 pounds it performed a full-stop landing in only 267 feet.  With a maximum load on take-off it used only 745 feet.

These tests proved that the KC-130F could take off with 25,000 pounds of cargo, transport it 2,500 miles and land safely on the carrier.  Our modern jets can do some amazing things, but this stuff is just crazy.  I could keep going, but I’d rather you just enjoy the video below.

All information quoted above comes from the video itself.