page_title: Lockheed MC-130
section_title: Testing and delivery
hierarchical_section_title: Lockheed MC-130 / MC-130H Combat Talon II / Combat Talon II Development / Testing and delivery
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: MC 130H US Air Force 15th Special Operation Squadron
context_page_description: The Lockheed MC-130 is the basic designation for a family of special mission aircraft operated by the United States Air Force Special Operations Command, a wing of the Air Education and Training Command, and an AFSOC-gained wing of the Air Force Reserve Command. Based on the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport, the MC-130s' missions are the infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces, and the air refueling of special operations helicopter and tilt-rotor aircraft.
  The family comprises:
  in service:
  MC-130H Combat Talon II
  MC-130J Commando II
  retired:
  MC-130E Combat Talon I
  MC-130P Combat Shadow
  MC-130W Combat/Dragon Spear
  A possible MC-130 variant, designated the XFC-130H, did not proceed beyond the development stage, but one of its aircraft became the YMC-130H testbed aircraft for the Combat Talon II.
  The first of the variants, the MC-130E, was developed to support clandestine special operations missions during the Vietnam War. Eighteen were created by modifying C-130E transports, and four lost through attrition, but the remainder served more than four decades after their initial modification.
context_section_description: One of the two surviving Credible Sport airframes, 74-1686, became the YMC-130H test bed for the next generation of Combat Talons, under the project name Credible Sport II. Phase I testing, conducted between August 24 and November 11, 1981, identified design deficiencies in the airframe and determined that the Credible Sport configuration did not have the safety margins necessary for peacetime operations. Phase II testing began June 15, 1982, continued through October 1982, and determined that the final Combat Talon II configuration, with significant improvements in design, avionics, and equipment, was ready for production.
  The initial purchase was authorized in 1982 at 12 aircraft, even though war-fighting requirements were estimated at more than 100, but was cut from funding until 1984. In 1983, USAF Special Operations Forces were transferred to the Military Airlift Command, seen as another move by USAF to divest itself of its special operations role. Creation of the 23rd Air Force reinforced that perception; SOF represented less than 35% of its personnel and virtually none of its headquarters staff, dominated by the "rescue community". However, the moves did remove the Combat Talon program from three fighter-oriented commands to a single command where promotion cycles were more favorable.
  In 1983, MAC established a Special Operations Force Master Plan that called for 21 Combat Talon IIs, including two attrition backups, with initial operational capability in the third quarter of 1987 and full delivery by 1991. The first Combat Talon II, 83-1212, was delivered in June 1984, but an earlier decision by USAF not to equip it with the navigational radar suite of the MC-130E slowed its development for years. In the meantime, Initiative 17, part of the "31 Initiatives" agreement between the Army and Air Force in May 1984, was deferred later that year (and eventually killed) after objections from members of Congress who saw it as a divestiture of the SOF role by the Air Force. As a result, the Air Force cut procurement of new HH-60D Nighthawk combat rescue aircraft from its budget requests—further delaying the Combat Talon II program, whose glass cockpit and integrated avionics systems were tied, for cost reasons, to those of the HH-60D.
  Five Combat Talon IIs were delivered in 1985 but the problem of acquiring a navigation radar had not been resolved (the APQ-122 was no longer being built). IBM was contracted to develop a new terrain following/avoidance radar, who then subcontracted the task to Emerson Electric Company. The resulting radar performed so poorly that the Combat Talon II was nearly cancelled, but special operations advocates in Congress kept the program alive. Ultimately the AN/APQ-170(V)8 radar was developed into a system that exceeded specifications, but at a large cost overrun and with a further three-year delay in the Combat Talon II becoming operational. Deliveries in 1987, 1988, and 1989 brought the inventory to 18 aircraft, but all were still in modification, testing, or long term storage.
caption: MC-130H Combat Talon II of 15th SOS
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