The Austrian Armed Forces operate three C-130Ks in Hörsching, which were delivered to the RAF in 1967/68. Thanks to the almost uninterrupted permanent presence of an aircraft at the British specialist Marshall of Cambridge, they can continue to fly until at least 2025 – extended by a fourth ex-RAF aircraft as a spare parts donor.
One problem is the recurring malfunctions and delays of the frequently flown “Herkys” due to their age, most recently in December on a return flight to Kosovo with Minister Thomas Starlinger. The long outage in 2019 was due to an accident in the USA; the propeller blades had to be replaced on all C-130s worldwide. As a result, the supply of the Austrian contingents abroad was massively impaired for weeks, and most of the required supplies had to be transported by truck. A possible replacement – assuming the necessary political will – would be new or used C-130J Juliet aircraft. The successor to the C-130K is currently being phased out by the British; most recently, aircraft were sold to Bahrain and Bangladesh.
