The leader of Air Mobility Command, Gen. Duncan McNabb, flew the active Air Force’s first new C-130J Super Hercules airlifter to Little Rock AFB, Ark., on Tuesday. McNabb, who picked up the new Herk at Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., production facility and flew it on to Little Rock for the 463rd Airlift Group, called the J model “one of the crown jewels of air mobility and the workhorse of the fleet.” The Air Force first fielded the C-130J with Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command units. In a company statement, Lockheed’s C-130 VP, David Haines, noted that the J model “is currently operating around the world in high tempo combat and humanitarian operations,” providing “significant force multiplication for the combatant commander.”
Some U.S. personnel are evacuating Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, America’s main military base in the Middle East, as President Donald Trump is weighing military action against Iran in response to its crackdown on protestors, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
