Lockheed receives production order to deliver additional C-130J for USCG

Lockheed Martin has received a production order, worth approximately $63.5m, from the US Air Force (USAF) for the manufacture of an additional C-130J Super Hercules long-range surveillance aircraft for the US Coast Guard (USCG).

The aircraft will be the 14th of 22 C-130Js that the USCG intends to acquire.

The contract, which will be funded by USCG and includes an option to acquire a 15th C-130J, follows after the air force exercised an option as part of a multiyear procurement award. The USAF serves as the government’s executive agent for all C-130 procurements.

Production work under the contract will be carried out at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics facility in Marietta, Georgia. Further aircraft purchases will be negotiated through future contract actions.

Currently, production work is underway on the USCG’s 11^th to 13^th C-130Js. Delivery of the 14^th aircraft is scheduled to take place in April 2020.

The base configuration aircraft (series 11-13) are expected to be delivered in 2018 and 2019, following which they will enter the Minotaur integration process with the L3 Technologies’ Integrated Systems Platform Integration Division in Waco, Texas, US.

To date, the USCG has accepted delivery of ten C-130Js, of which four HC-130Js equipped with legacy mission system suite capabilities are operating out of Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina, US.

These aircraft are set to be upgraded to the Minotaur mission system suite.

In June this year, a fifth HC-130J Minotaur prototype (CGNR 2003) was delivered to the air station.

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Image: Liquid oxygen levels being replenished in an HC-130J Super Hercules aircraft at Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina, US. Photo: courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard photo by Seaman Shannon J. Shepard.