{"id":561,"date":"2014-10-29T16:36:50","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T14:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=561"},"modified":"2014-10-29T16:36:50","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T14:36:50","slug":"usaf-starts-mc-130p-combat-shadow-retirement-from-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=561","title":{"rendered":"USAF Starts MC-130P Combat Shadow Retirement from Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is to retire the last group of MC-130P Combat Shadow special mission aircraft from the Pacific region this month.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>

Two USAF MC-130P Combat Shadows fly over the coast of Okinawa, Japan. (Photo by US Air Force photo \/ airman 1st class Keith James.)<\/p><\/div>\n

The 17th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) marked the beginning of the MC-130P retirement, with the last final formation flight taking place at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.<\/p>\n

17th SOS commander lieutenant colonel Nathan Colunga said: “This event marks the historic beginning of the end for the MC-130P Combat Shadow in the Pacific.<\/p>\n

“It has served our command well, but ultimately it is time to retire the fleet and bring out the MC-130J Commando II as its replacement.”<\/p>\n

Manufactured in the 1960s, Lockheed Martin-built MC-130P is a modified C-130E\/H series airframe designed for infiltration, exfiltration and resupply of special operations forces. It is also utilized for air refuelling of special operations helicopter and tilt-rotor aircraft.<\/p>\n

Previously designated HC-130N\/P, the aircraft entered service with AFSOC in the mid-1980s. It conducted critical air refuelling missions in the late 1980s during ‘Operation Just Cause’ in Panama and the early 1990s during ‘Operation Desert Storm’.<\/p>\n

In the Pacific region alone, the aircraft supported more than a dozen named operations. This included combat missions during ‘Operations Enduring Freedom’ and ‘Iraqi Freedom’ to humanitarian assistance disaster relief operations across Asia.<\/p>\n

The last group of Kadena Combat Shadows are scheduled to leave for the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, US, this month, while the final MC-130P from the Pacific is set to retire in April 2015.<\/p>\n

May 2015 is the scheduled decommission date for the last USAF MC-130P Combat Shadow.<\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong>\u00a029 October 2014 (airforce-technology.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is to retire the last group of MC-130P Combat Shadow special mission aircraft from the Pacific region this month. The 17th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) marked...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[407,203,411,409,408,205,410,412,97],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":563,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}