RNZAF to land a C-130H Hercules at retired Air Force base Wigram
At the end of January, the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) officially retired their fleet of five workhorse C-130H Hercules’. After their retirement, there has been many rumours of one Hercules landing on the field at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand. These rumours were confirmed today when the Air Force Museum made a post of Facebook and letters were sent out to residents around the museum in Wigram.
An RNZAF C-130H Hercules on final approach | Photo: Noah Stohr-Waldren
The letter began saying “Dear Neighbour, We wanted to let you know in advance about an unusual aircraft movement planned for the coming weeks. The Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) is intending to land a C-130H Hercules transport aircraft on the grounds of the Air Force Museum.“
Previously, the RNZAF said they were planning on having one aircraft go to the Air Force Museum at Wigram and was working through the delivery options for that which has now been confirmed as a short field landing.
The exact date and time of the landing remains unconfirmed however, the letter stated it would take place in the next month, between the hours of 8 am and 8 pm.
The landing Hercules will fly in via a low approach over Corsair Drive when residents can expect to hear very loud engine noise for a short period of time. To ensure the a safe landing, the letter said the aircraft may need to make multiple approaches before its final landing.
The landing area at the museum is more than large enough for the aircraft to land as the C-130 was built to be capable of landing on extremely short landing sites. Recently, the RNZAF has been practicing short field landings on a grass runway at Woodbourne Airport, proving the aircraft is capable.
One of the RNZAF Hercules’ preforming a stol (short) landing at Warbirds Over Wanaka | Photo: Noah Stohr-Waldren
This will be the very final landing of an RNZAF C-130H after over 60 years of service. After the aircraft makes its final touchdown, it will then be prepared to go into storage prior to going on display in the future at the Air Force Museum.
In total, the fleet clocked up more than 155,000 accident-free flying hours and nearly 100,000 landings at home and around the world.
It’s an incredible record considering some of the challenging and often inhospitable operating environments,” says Chief of Air Force, Air Vice-Marshal Darryn Webb.
One of the RNZAF’s five C-130H’s departing for a flight to Antarctica | Photo: Noah Stohr-Waldren
The site of the Air Force Museum was previously an RNZAF Air Base, Wigram. However, it was closed in 2009 when the government wanted to rationalise their military property.
The RNZAF does fly helicopters into the site occasionally although there hasn’t been a fixed-wing aircraft flying at the airfield since February 2009. Seeing the Hercules land at the museum will be an incredible site and a great way to send of the incredible aircraft.
Over the past few weeks, the C-130H Hercules’ have completed formation flyovers across the country to farewell the planes which concluded with a last landing in Woodbourne on February the 4th. The four other remaining C-130H’s at Woodbourne are unfortunately expected to be slowly dismantled in the near future.