On a windy October day in 1963, 500 miles offshore from Boston, Lt. James H. Flatley III aimed his C-130 Hercules, America’s massive cargo-carrying workhorse plane, toward the USS Forrestal, certainly one of the Navy’s largest aircraft carriers. The ship powered through choppy Atlantic seas that pitched its flight deck up and down by as much as 30 feet as Flatley descended toward his goal.
Navy pilots like Flatley train relentlessly as a way to land nimble jets on aircraft carriers. However the mighty Hercules boasted a wingspan of 132 feet, nearly 4 times wider than Flatley’s usual fighter, the F-4N Phantom II. Aircraft built to land on carriers have reinforced airframes to resist hard landings, together with a tail hook to grab arresting cables on the flight deck to bring them to a sudden, protected stop. But Flatley’s flippantly modified KC-130F—a Marine Corps refueling variant of the Hercules—had neither.
Using an old fighter-pilot trick often known as the “chop,” Flatley killed the engines just a few feet off the deck, principally belly-flopping his plane onto the carrier. As he brought the 85,000-pound behemoth down, his wingtip missed the control tower by just 15 feet. Despite its incredible size, the C-130 got here to a whole stop in only 267 feet, with loads of the carrier’s 1,000-plus-foot runway left. Flatley would take off and land his KC-130 aboard the Forrestal nearly two dozen times, demonstrating just how well the Hercules could handle extreme aviation conditions. To today, Flatley, who retired as a rear admiral, stays the one person to land a C-130 on an aircraft carrier.
Those early tests proved that the plane’s stout frame and ridiculously powerful propeller-driven engines made it suitable for tasks way more demanding than hauling cargo. The C-130 would function an airborne refueler, deliver special-operations troops to far-flung airstrips, and even circle over combat zones with an enormous 105mm howitzer hanging out the side.
In the course of the heightened nuclear tensions of the Cold War, the C-130 stepped into its most consequential role. That’s when the Navy initially equipped 4 C-130 squadrons with advanced communication systems to relay messages between military leaders and the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines that were silently prowling the ocean’s depths, loaded with nearly all of America’s nuclear arsenal. The mission—given the excellence TACAMO, or “Take Charge and Move Out”—ensured that critical nuclear-launch directions called emergency motion messages, or EAMs, reached the subs within the event that Russia initiated a nuclear attack.
As an alternative of contemporary radio communications, TACAMO resorted to very low frequency (VLF) radio broadcasts, a technology that had been around for nearly 100 years. The low frequencies penetrated seawater higher than any others, and worked at incredible ranges. A single plane trailing a five-mile-long antenna could deliver emergency messages to subs hiding anywhere within the ocean, even in the course of the frenetic aftermath of a nuclear explosion. After the primary 4 TACAMO aircraft proved to achieve success, the Navy expanded this system, permanently installing VLF communications systems into eight C-130s, then dubbed EC-130Qs.
Within the Nineteen Eighties, sleek, speedy Boeing 707s took over the TACAMO mission, earning the unofficial nickname “doomsday plane” for his or her formidable, world-ending task. But with the 707s reaching the top of their service lives and the specter of nuclear catastrophe heating up, the U.S. Navy will return to its workhorse, the C-130, to perform its most important—and gravest—mission. The brand new plane, expected to enter service in 2028, resembles the old Herc, but it is going to come equipped for a brand new era of nuclear conflict.
In 2021, Russia’s newest nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the RS-28 Sarmat, entered service. At the moment, the country’s media outlets claimed the weapon could wipe out “parts of the earth the scale of Texas or France.” And that’s not the one nuclear threat on the horizon. In November 2022, U.S. Strategic Command provided Congress with a classified report disclosing that China now had more ground-based ICBM launchers than america had.
High tensions with Russia and China, in addition to the war in Ukraine, led the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to set its “Doomsday Clock” just a few ticks closer to midnight, showing how close we’re to nuclear war. In January, members of the group warned that the world is now “the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.”
Amid those escalating nuclear fears, the world got its first glimpse of the brand new doomsday plane when Lockheed Martin produced a rendering of the EC-130J TACAMO, clad in Navy gray with VLF radio-transmitting wires trailing off the tail. While the outside of the brand new plane looks strikingly just like its Nineteen Sixties predecessor, its overhauled interior is straight out of the twenty first century. Pilots will get night-vision-compatible heads-up displays (HUD) that display airspeed and altitude of their field of view. A digital map display in the middle of the cockpit shows the aircraft’s position, fed by two global positioning systems (GPS) and an inertial navigation system (INS) in case an enemy jams the plane’s access to GPS satellites.
The aircraft comes with advanced electronics to assist it avoid air traffic or terrain like mountains—so even when its pilots are incapacitated or distracted, the C-130 can safely maneuver around obstacles. A collection of missile-warning and countermeasure systems notify the crew in the event that they’ve been targeted by an enemy, before deploying flares or chaff (clouds of thin strips of metal) to confuse heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles. And Lockheed Martin claims the brand new plane would require 68 percent less time to take care of than the older version, due to onboard diagnostics that monitor the condition of the aircraft’s structure and computer systems.
The fuselage is 15 feet longer than that of previous EC-130Qs, giving the plane more room for personnel and cargo. Due to upgraded Rolls-Royce AE 2100D3 turboprop engines, the C-130J-30 can fly at 410 miles per hour and reach 26,000 feet, and it has the power to hold 44,000-pound payloads—all improvements over its predecessor.
Henry Cyr, director of Northrop’s Multi-Domain Command & Control Capture Programs—that are liable for integrating TACAMO communications systems into the brand new aircraft—told The Drive that “the C-130 is a high-wing aircraft, [so] the aerodynamics provide a greater efficiency, more capability.”
A very powerful upgrade is to the VLF communication system, which is being developed by Collins Aerospace. Advanced encryption methods be sure that the messages aren’t jammed or degraded on their approach to the recipient. Even amid a nuclear war, these critical messages can reach their goal.
VLF technology dates back nearly 120 years, when it was used to send a few of the first transoceanic messages at frequencies starting from 14 to 60 kilohertz. Such low-frequency tech became essential in the course of the Cold War. Before then, submarines spent most of their time on the surface, using the identical communication methods as every other ship. After the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, entered service in 1955, the Navy needed a approach to reach such a vessel, which could remain submerged deep under water for as much as two weeks at a time.
America operates five ground-based VLF communication stations, that are the backbone of the U.S. Navy’s submarine broadcast system. Each station has dozens of individual antennas connected via hundreds of miles of copper wire; some even have their very own power plants. After Russia developed long-range missiles within the Nineteen Sixties that might reach across the globe, these global communications networks became early targets during war planning. The U.S. needed one other approach to communicate with its hidden subs lurking 200 to 300 feet below the ocean surface. It turned to the C-130.
In an effort to broadcast nuclear launch commands, today’s TACAMO aircraft deploy a five-mile-long VLF antenna from the back while their pilots make steeply banked turns at about 130 miles per hour—only about 10 miles per hour above the minimum speed required to maintain the jet from stalling. They dance on the sting of the aircraft’s ability to remain airborne for hours on end, performing tight circles to maintain their antenna hanging vertically toward the ocean while broadcasting the EAM to nuclear submarines authorizing a launch.
Each of those subs carries as many nuclear warheads as some entire nations possess. Their ability to remain hidden after which counterattack provides a powerful deterrent against nuclear war. Nevertheless it only works if American military leadership can contact them. The density and conductive nature of seawater prevents high-frequency signals, the backbone of most recent communication systems, from penetrating below the ocean’s surface. The longer wavelengths of VLF radio waves, alternatively, can penetrate deeper and from greater distances—but they lack the bandwidth to transmit much information.
Consequently, these EAMs consist of coded alphanumeric text messages that, when read aloud, use the military’s phonetic alphabet. To anyone not equipped to cipher these messages, EAMs are all but meaningless. One message overheard by amateur radio operators in December 2020, for example, read: “R3EUJD – SNX3JL5XXJAXVWTU6RNBJN7J.” What exactly that code means, nevertheless, is anybody’s guess.
Back in 1963, when the C-130 was first commissioned for TACAMO, the aircraft carried VLF transmitters and antenna arrays in vans that were rolled into the plane’s cargo bay. But this system proved so successful that inside just just a few years, the Navy had permanently affixed VLF systems into eight C-130s, which eventually became often known as the C-130Q.
A slew of upgrades within the Nineteen Seventies—like a brand new power amplifier to spice up the amplitude of the radio signal and a high-speed reel to deploy and retract antennas like an enormous fishing rod—kept these TACAMO C-130Qs viable into the Nineteen Eighties. But as these aircraft approached the top of their service lives as a result of wear and tear, the Navy turned to Boeing’s jet-powered 707 airliners to take over TACAMO duties.
The ultimate 16 jets to ever roll off Boeing’s long-standing 707 production line carried a brand new name—E-6 Mercury TACAMO. These jets outperformed the C-130Q in maximum altitude, refueling range, speed, and payload capability. Due to EMP-hardened systems, even the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear detonation couldn’t knock a Mercury out of commission.
Nevertheless, the jet-powered E-6 can take off and land only on well-manicured runways clear of rocks, pebbles, and similar litter, which service members call “foreign object debris,” or FOD. Former Marine aircraft mechanic Tory Wealthy says the C-130, alternatively, is understood to be “a tank in FOD-heavy environments.” That increases the variety of bases from which these aircraft can operate. As Lt. James H. Flatley III had demonstrated when landing his C-130 on an aircraft carrier within the Nineteen Sixties, these planes don’t need a protracted, well-maintained airstrip to operate—a big wartime advantage over the E-6.
One other advantage: The C-130’s sturdy airframe and powerful engines allow it to operate in harsh conditions and even after suffering major damage. A Marine Corps KC-130J Super Hercules aerial tanker proved the design’s toughness in 2020 when an F-35B fighter jet collided with it over California, tearing a hole through the KC-130 and destroying each of its starboard engines. Despite rapid decompression of the fuselage, a hearth on board, and abrupt fuel loss, the crew of the KC-130 landed safely in a close-by cauliflower field with no serious injuries.
The C-130J can be significantly cheaper than the E-6 to operate. Boeing stopped producing the 707 in 1991, and lots of of its parts after the last batch went to the Navy. Those jets are actually greater than 30 years old; with few spare parts, keeping them airworthy is an expensive challenge. The C-130, alternatively, is some of the common cargo planes on the planet, with greater than 2,500 ordered or delivered to 63 different nations. Spare parts and expert mechanics are rarely far-off.
After early testing, the Navy awarded Lockheed Martin $62.2 million in April 2023 to further develop the EC-130J concept. If all goes well, the corporate will deliver three developmental aircraft in 2027 and 6 more EC-130Js the next 12 months. It is feasible that these latest planes will operate alongside the E-6 Mercury until 2038, giving them ample time to iron out any wrinkles in this system.
First flown in 1954, the C-130 has soared through the skies longer than every other military aircraft in history. In an era of stealth fighters, AI-piloted drones, and hypersonic missiles, the C-130 and its long radio antenna is a rugged throwback. If the terrible day ever comes when america has to unleash its nuclear power upon the world, it won’t be a sleek and stealthy latest fighter jet that ushers in the long run of the world. It’ll be a straightforward text message, relayed through miles of slung antennas, broadcast over the buzzing hum of a circling C-130’s spinning propellers.