A C-130 Hercules aircraft, variant H, was transferred, free of charge, from the surplus of the United States Government to the Romanian Air Force. The military transport aircraft landed on Tuesday, December 14, at Bucharest's Baneasa Airport.

According to the Romanian Ministry of Defense (MApN), the plane was brought to Romania by a crew of the 120th Airlift Wing unit of the Montana Air National Guard, which has owned and operated the aircraft to date. It will now enter the endowment of Romania's 90th Air Transport Base - the 901 Strategic Transport Squadron.

"The aircraft transfer, ratified by a Letter of Offer and Acceptance agreement, is the result of a complex process carried out in recent years under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program through the Office of Defense Cooperation - ODC in Bucharest. To carry out the aircraft's transfer with maximum efficiency, the ODC has been in close contact with the Romanian Air Force, as well as with the C-130 Program Coordination Office in the United States," MApN said.

"Our country is thus among the first partner states to which, under the new C-130 Ramp to Ramp (R2R) program, an American operational aircraft is flown and transferred directly," it added.

The Romanian Air Force now has six C-130 Hercules aircraft.

The first Hercules C-130 "B" aircraft landed in Romania on October 25, 1996, followed by three other aircraft of the same type. The first flight of a fully Romanian C-130 plane took place on March 18, 1997, and in the summer of the same year, the first mission was carried out outside Romania. On January 28, 2002, the first Hercules of the Romanian Air Force landed in Afghanistan.

The fifth C-130 Hercules, variant H, entered the endowment of the Air Force on February 14, 2007.

Over time, Romanian aircraft of this type have participated in numerous exercises and applications in Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Great Britain, Norway, Portugal, Poland) and domestic and international humanitarian missions ( China, Indonesia, Libya, Montenegro, Turkey).

More than 50 countries use this type of aircraft, which is the most widely used military transport aircraft in the world, according to MApN.

newsroom@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Mapn.ro; photo by Valentin Cionîrcă)