Jump to content

C17 versus C130


herkman
 Share

Recommended Posts

Can any one explain the difference in rough or unprepared fields for these two aircraft. Having some britt leading the push that the A400 can operate in worse field conditions than the C130 and C17.

If I recall when we got the A models where we were shown a C130 operating in a soft field and they were so close to the ground level the doors were ploughing the field.

Thanks

Col

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can any one explain the difference in rough or unprepared fields for these two aircraft. Having some britt leading the push that the A400 can operate in worse field conditions than the C130 and C17.

If I recall when we got the A models where we were shown a C130 operating in a soft field and they were so close to the ground level the doors were ploughing the field.

Thanks

Col

My experience is that the C-17 won't fly far after landing on an umprepared field. Not much of the gear doors and or associated compnents would be left. Adding the armor blankets doesn't seem to help much.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I recall when we got the A models where we were shown a C130 operating in a soft field and they were so close to the ground level the doors were ploughing the field.

Thanks

Col

Col,

This is probably the photo you're referring to. It's from Dabney's book, "Herk: Hero of the Skies."

Don R.[ATTACH=CONFIG]1837[/ATTACH]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am aware of a case of Herks being on soft sand. In order to get the aircraft to "float up" onto the top of the soft surface, they had to pump the elevators while accelerating in order to lift up higher and get more speed for takeoff. If you are on soft soil or sand, you'll need lots of runway. Even then, once your MLG doors are plowing the surface, I don't know how much luck you'll have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

During Desert Storm we had some missions into a dirt (sand) airfield built by the Marines. The field was pretty much in the middle of the desert very near the Iraqi border. There were a lot of heavy Herks going in and out, so the runways got beat up pretty bad. There were some fairly deep and long ruts created by the heavyweight landings. Slowing down was not a problem at all. The Marines did a pretty good job of keeping the airfield open. They actually built two runways. While one was being dinged up by all the heavyweight landings, they were working on the other runway to smooth and compact it. When it was ready they would switch runways.

The biggest problem we had was takeoff. Because we were so near the Iraqi border, we landed to the north and took off to the south. That meant we had to takeoff into the same ruts we created during landing. Once you hit the ruts, the aircraft would jerk pretty good one way or the other as it went in and out of the ruts. Made for some fairly memorable takeoffs.

-Jim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember that landing strip, it was like LZ44 or something like that.

If I remember right we were hauling loads of 105mm out of the strip, it sure was a fun take off. As for landing, once you touch down the pilot didn't have to worry about nose wheel steering, the ruts steered the bird where it wanted you to do, wasn't much choice about it.

meatLZ44-1.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have video of the semi prepared runway operations done by Boeing for the C-17. They looked at muddy condition, hard pack and semi soft/sanding. The testing was pretty thorough to say the least but it showed that it was capable to do it, but extremely messy and detrimental to all the antennas on the belly as well as the 300M steel landing gear components and composite landing gear doors. They said during the landing on muddy surfaces, that the aircraft actually gained approx 600 lbs from mud kicked up in the wheels and caked on components. Interesting to see one of the landings during the muddy conditions that the C-17 actually did some fish tails in the sloppy conditions (probably pretty damn scary).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...