KoenL

Great job Casey!

Koen

Hmm I tried entering some Dutch, Belgian and RAF Hercs to test it and it didn't recognize any of those.

Is this for US Herc serialnumbers only?

They had to save money somewhere so they had to pick the C-17A, A400M or C-130 to get rid of. Since the A400M can probably do almost everything they do with their Hercs and neither the C-130 or A400M can fullfill the C-17's role it was inevitable. Who knows, in ten years they might change their mind again but otherwise I'm sure they won't have too much trouble selling C-130J's even if they have the highest hours of any C-130J's right now.

Heard that work to break down the old C-130K's at RAF Lyneham has started this week. XV217, 220, 290 and 305 are unfortunate ones.

Koen

Haha good one guys! On a more serious note I do wonder if there is any interest in the aircraft they aren\'t upgrading. What kind of state would they be in?

Nigeria to spend 150b naira to refurbish military planes

Abuja, Nigeria - Nigeria\'s federal government has earmarked 150 billion

naira to refurbish military planes grounded by years of neglect, according to Defence Minister Yayale Ahmed (125 naira=US$1).

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) will spend the money to bring back to service five C-130 Hercules Transport planes as well as fighter and trainer jets, the Minister said.

Already, one the five C-130 planes remaining in the inventory of the

NAF has been successfully refurbished in Bordeaux, France, where it underwent the Periodic Depot Maintenance.

The plane arrived in the capital city of Abuja Tuesday, while the

remaining four are also slated to undergo the same maintenance

The Minister said the newly-refurbished aircraft spent one year in France \"and it has been successfully done and transformed into a brand new aircraft.\"

\"All the NAF aircraft that you used to see sleeping, we have now

injected funds for them to start sneezing and from that stage they will go crawling, jumping and flying,\" he said Tuesday in Abuja, at a ceremony to formally receive the C-130 plane from France.

In addition to the refurbishment of the air force planes, the Minister

said there were plans to purchase new ones \"when the occasion demanded\".

Ahmed said the return to service of the transport planes would enable

the country to airlift its troops for peacekeeping mission and also assist needy African air forces.

Eight C-130 aircraft were originally in the inventory of the NAF, but

by 2005 most of them had been grounded due to years of non-maintenance.

Out of the eight grounded transport planes, NAF decided to de-commission three, leaving the five now slated for maintenance.

Abuja - 24/10/2007

Panapress