WASHINGTON — The times of analog cockpit gauges, clunky navigation systems and pilots lugging around laptops are numbered for the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard’s C-130H Hercules transport aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force is transitioning most of its aging Guard and Reserve C-130Hs to a brand new, almost-entirely-digital avionics and navigation system that it hopes will dramatically simplify how aircrews fly them, the service said Tuesday.
The brand new system, dubbed Avionics Modernization Program Increment 2, will update the C-130′s cockpit with six interconnected digital displays. These large glass multifunctional displays will replace all but three of the old analog gauges, which date back to the C-130′s nearly 60-year-old original design.
“This is far larger than simply a software or hardware upgrade,” said Maj. Jacob Duede, an experimental test pilot for the 417th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base. “It’s reconstructing and modernizing the aircraft’s entire cockpit area.”
The Air Force has about 118 C-130Hs total in its Guard and Reserve fleets, most of that are greater than 30 years old. The service is replacing them with newer C-130Js, which energetic duty mobility units fly, but amid that yearslong effort, the service must upgrade its C-130Hs to maintain them up thus far.
The Air Force said the cockpits of greater than 23 Reserve and 54 Guard C-130s will receive upgrades over the subsequent five years, with each modification costing about $7 million.
The 417th Flight Test Squadron, a part of the 96th Test Wing, began developmental testing of the brand new avionics system on the primary C-130H to receive the upgrade in August, the service said. More Hercules will start receiving upgrades this month.
Developmental testing, which began in 2021, will proceed at Eglin Air Force Base through December. The aircraft will then move to Little Rock, Arkansas, for the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center to begin operational testing.
The cockpit upgrade also brings with it a brand new flight management system, autopilot, an updated global positioning system, a digital engine instrument, and a terrain and warning system, the Air Force said.
It is going to spell the top of a painfully cumbersome navigation process Guard and Reserve C-130 pilots have operated under for years, Duede said — one which required aircrews to bring tablets or laptops onboard to drag up the vital navigational software.
“Aircrew essentially needed to print the directions before flying after which type the data in using latitude and longitude, or use ground-based navigation aids,” Duede said. “This recent mod is the most recent GPS navigation with a by-name search function and autopilot, all built into the aircraft.”
The brand new system will even make it easier for aircrews to change their flight plans midair, the service said. Under the old system, pilots needed to coordinate with air traffic control to vary their flight plan after which look up the brand new latitude and longitude on a tablet or laptop. The pilots would then enter those coordinates into the aircraft’s system. This might take anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes, depending on the proficiency of the crew, Duede said — “either of which is a protracted time when within the air moving at 4 miles per minute.”
The Air Force said the brand new displays, with their built-in navigational software, would allow the pilot to vary the flight plan by hand in lower than 30 seconds.
The brand new integrated terrain awareness and warning system is a version of the ground- and object-avoidance program utilized in industrial aircraft, but upgraded with Air Force tactical flying requirements. To check that warning system, the service said, aircrews sometimes fly toward the bottom or at obstacles to make sure it really works as quickly and clearly as intended.
The aircrew study all parts of the brand new avionics system during developmental flight tests so the service can tell the manufacturer if anything needs modified.
“That is a wholly recent system,” Caleb Reeves, a test engineer with the 417th Flight Test Squadron, said within the service announcement. “Every little thing we’re testing here is being done for the primary time ever on this aircraft.”
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.