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Winter 1999

New C-130

(Photo by Carlye Calvin.)

Through the cooperative efforts of NASA and NSF, a second C-130 aircraft recently arrived at NCAR's Research Aviation Facility. RAF staff will transfer parts from this plane to the NSF/NCAR C-130. "We should be able to swap engines and give the aircraft a completely new lease on life. That's a major, multimillion-dollar benefit," says Jeffrey Stith, manager of RAF. Stith also expects to be able to use some other parts, such as racks and ports.

The deal was arranged by Jim Huning (NSF Atmospheric Science Division), who oversees UCAR and NCAR's observing facilities. "When I was at NASA headquarters," Huning says, "due to changing requirements and budgetary concerns, I had to ground that C-130. It has been on the ground since 1995. When I came to NSF in May, one of the issues that came up was that they were hoping to upgrade the engines that are currently on the [NSF/NCAR] C-130. I knew the NASA plane had upgraded to Dash-15 engines, and they only had about 400 hours on them." Huning notes that the staff at Dryden Flight Research Center and also at NASA HQ were "incredibly cooperative" in arranging the transfer.

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Edited by Carol Rasmussen, carolr@ucar.edu
 Prepared for the Web by Jacque Marshall
Last revised: Tue Apr 4 15:11:41 MDT 2000