On February 29, the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) held a farewell ceremony for its last C-130 Hercules turboprop.
Lockheed Martin’s transport aircraft have been in service since the second half of 1964, initially with the C-130E version.
Since then, the Hercules has become the FAB’s main military freighter, having participated in countless missions in various parts of the world.
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The turboprop, however, has been replaced since 2019 by the Embraer KC-390 Millennium, a multi-role aircraft with greater transport capacity and speed.
The FAB had already been removing the remaining C-130Hs from service and stopped flying the last two planes in December.
However, in January and February the Hercules FAB2476 and FAB2462 were used in farewell events for the type, such as launching paratroopers.
On Thursday, February 29th, KC-130 FAB2462 flew over the Galeão Air Base, in Rio de Janeiro, to mark the 59th anniversary of the First Transport Group (1st/1st GT) – Gordo Squadron, where it is based.
Among the most notable missions in which the Brazilian Air Force Hercules participated are around 400 flights to Antarctica in addition to humanitarian activities in Congo in 2003, El Salvador in 2005, Haiti between 2009 and 2017, Peru in 2017 and Chile between 2010 and 2023, part of them for firefighting.
Embraer has an order for 19 KC-390 Millennium with the FAB, of which it has already delivered seven aircraft.
