1980s: Beginning of the C-130 Hercules workload

  • Published
  • 75th Air Base Wing History Office

Editor's note: This feature is part of a Hill Air Force Base 80th anniversary series. These articles will feature the base’s historical innovations and achievements, and will highlight mission platforms that have been operated and supported throughout the decades.

For more than three decades, the Ogden Air Logistics Complex has performed depot maintenance on the C-130 Hercules. In addition to a temporary OV-10 Bronco project, Air Force Logistics Command shifted a portion of the C-130 Hercules workload from the San Antonio Air Logistics Center to the Ogden ALC in 1988.

The first C-130 arrived at Hill AFB for depot maintenance in July 1988. Assigned as a permanent work load, Programmed Depot Maintenance for a C-130 required about 10,000 man-hours per aircraft at that time. Ogden ALC planned to complete PDM on 30 C-130s per year beginning in 1990.

During a C-130 welcoming ceremony, Major General Robert P. McCoy, the then Ogden ALC commander, stated, “There is no one better equipped to start work on this weapon system than the Hill work force. The C-130 is a good, solid work load and will be for many years to come. It is an important weapon system to the Air Force and will be with us for many years. There is no doubt in my mind that we will prove we can do this job better than anyone else.”

In the lead up to the work load transition between the two ALC’s, a contingent of personnel from the Ogden ALC Directorate of Maintenance served temporarily at the San Antonio ALC (Kelly AFB, Texas) and Warner Robins ALC (Robins AFB, Georgia). There they received “hands on” C-130 maintenance training. They also identified and helped to move the required technical manuals and substantial amount of support equipment necessary for the new work load.

The Ogden ALC planned 215 days for completion of maintenance on the first C-130 to go through its line. In just 172 days, however, the Ogden ALC completed the C-130E, aircraft 63-7834, from the Air Force Reserve’s 913th Tactical Airlift Group, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The C-130s initially programmed for maintenance at the Ogden ALC were assigned to USAF active duty units in Arkansas, North California, and Texas; Air Force Reserve units in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Ohio, and Michigan; and Air National Guard units in Wyoming and Virginia.

Fast forward two-and-a-half decades from 1988 to December 2014. The Ogden ALC’s 572nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron completed depot maintenance on a C-130 in 107 days, besting their goal of getting to a 117-day process. This goal also included completing 40 aircraft a year, or one every nine days.

In the three decades since this workload came to the Ogden ALC, hundreds of C-130s have left Hill AFB more mission ready than when they arrived. McCoy’s vision for the future of the C-130 workload at Hill AFB could not have proven more accurate.