RCAF Preparing for RIMPAC 2016

RCAF News Release

By Major Mark Patterson

Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) is the world’s largest international maritime exercise, involving nations with an interest in the Pacific Rim region. The exercise, led by the United States Navy, is conducted every two years from the Hawaiian Islands and Pearl Harbour.

Canada has participated in every RIMPAC since its inception in 1971, when it was an annual exercise; in 1974, it became a biennial exercise due to its size. The 2014 exercise involved 47 ships, six submarines, more than 200 aircraft and about 25,000 personnel from 22 nations.

The enormous exercise provides an opportunity for all Canada’s services – Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force – to train with international allies and partners. As of late April, the exact date of RIMPAC had not been announced by the U.S. Navy, but it generally takes place in the July timeframe.

Although RIMPAC is a navy-led exercise, it involves a strong air power component. To prepare RCAF personnel who will deploy on the 2016 exercise, the Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre (CFAWC), located in Trenton, Ontario, devel­oped and delivered an air operations centre (AOC) familiarization training session from March 21 to 24, 2016. Three more training sessions will take place in the weeks to come.

The RCAF will have a lead role in the RIMPAC combined air operations centre. Approximately 80 air force personnel will deploy, including Brigadier-General Blaise Frawley, the deputy commander of 1 Canadian Air Division, located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who will hold the position of joint force air component com­mander during the exercise.

The air operations centre provides operational-level command and control of air and space forces to accomplish joint force commander and air component commander objectives. The air operations centre plans, directs and assesses air operations to enable centralized control and decentralized execution of theater-wide operations at the com­ponent or joint task force level. Its structure is “task tailorable” to the mission or theatre, as well as the type of operations to be conducted.

CFAWC’s familiarization package provided a detailed explanation of command and control relationships, particularly as they apply at the joint-force level. As well, the training illustrated how an air operations centre performs operational-level planning and coordination: upward with the joint force commander; horizontally with land, sea and special operations components; and downward with wings or air expeditionary wings.

RCAF CF-18 Hornets arrive at Joint Base Hickam-Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to participate in the 2014 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise. The RCAF is preparing for participation in the 2016 edition of the exercise. PHOTO: Sergeant Matthew McGregor, IS2014-1022-03

Throughout the training session, the instructors passed along the knowledge and experience they have gained from employment in domes­tic and coalition air operations centre, using lectures and guided discussions to assist the students in understanding their roles and responsibilities within the centre.

The training session also provided an understanding of the continuous air planning cycle and allowed RIMPAC staff to meet as a group – as well as receive their initial guidance directly from Brigadier-General Frawley, RIMPAC 2016’s joint force air component commander.

With files from the Department of National Defence and United States Navy.

Last RCAF CC-130E Lands at Aviation Museum in Ottawa

.@avspacemuseum on #Periscope: Hercules arrival! https://t.co/1wZO5uh1Km

— CWH Museum (@CWHM) April 5, 2016

Check out the Tweet Above to watch the Last CC-130E land at the Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa.

Written by David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen 

The Department of National Defence has donated the last CC-130 Hercules E aircraft still in service to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. The aircraft made its last flight this morning, flying from 424 Transport and Rescue Squadron, Trenton Ontario to land at the museum in Ottawa this morning, according to the RCAF.

The Hercules will become part of the museum’s permanent exhibition.

In the case of transfer of the last CC-130 E Hercules Legacy in service to the museum, standard preservation procedures were applied: the fuel tanks were drained and engines disabled, the RCAF noted.

RCAF Crew with the CC-130E Hercules, ahead of its last flight (photo courtesy of RCAF)

Background from the RCAF on the C-130 E model:

Although designed in the early 1950s, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules remains one of the most successful military transport airplanes ever designed. Operated in every region of the globe, this flying truck has consistently shown itself to be extremely durable, reliable, and tough. The Royal Canadian Air Force received its first Hercules in the fall of 1960. Improved versions were ordered as time went by. A new batch was in fact delivered in 2010-12 and will remain in service for years to come. The Hercules offered to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum is the oldest Canadian example of the type. It entered service in 1965 and was used as a transport airplane, a navigation training airplane, and a search and rescue airplane.

The Hercules offered to the Museum (manufacturer number 382-4041) is the third CC-130E – and the seventh CC-130 – acquired by the Canadian military. Taken on strength on February 9, 1965, the airplane received the RCAF serial number 10307 (130307 from May 1970 onward). It flew with 435 Squadron, a unit based at RCAF Station Namao (Alberta).

After approximately ten years spent at Namao, the Hercules was converted into a navigation training airplane, with the designation CC-130N / NT or Nav-Herc, and used at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Winnipeg by the Canadian Forces Air Navigation School. It was one of four Hercules so modified to train navigators who would fly aboard transport airplanes (Lockheed CC-130 Hercules) or maritime patrol airplanes (Canadair CP-107 Argus or, later, Lockheed CP-140 Aurora). The airplanes could be configured for either type of training by using removable pallet-mounted consoles made by Northwest Industries of Edmonton. Each of these consoles carried two student positions as well as an instructor position, further back. A Hercules could either carry two identical consoles, or one of each type.

With the introduction of a dedicated navigation training airplane in 1991, the Hercules offered to the Museum was transferred to 429 Squadron, a transport unit based at CFB Winnipeg. In 1993, it was converted into a search and rescue airplane, a version known informally as the CC-130E(SAR). The airplane went to 424 Squadron, a unit based at CFB Trenton (Ontario).

This Hercules is the last of the CC-130Es and the oldest Hercules still flying in Canada. There is a CC-130E Hercules (serial number 130314), very similar to the one offered to the Museum, at the National Air Force Museum of Canada, in Trenton