On August 31, French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly and her German counterpart Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer initialed the agreement officially launching the joint Franco-German transport squadron, which will be operated by 10 Lockheed Martin C/KC-130J-30 Super Hercules aircraft.
Pour la première fois, 260 militaires français et allemands travailleront main dans la main pour faire voler 10 avions C130-J. Une étape majeure dans la construction de l’Europe de la défense ???????????????????????? pic.twitter.com/XwAeinlPTK
— Florence Parly (@florence_parly) August 31, 2021
The new squadron will have its operational headquarters at Evreux airbase in Normandy (France). It will be composed of 4 French Hercules (2 C-130J-30s and 2 KC-130J-30s), and 6 German (C-130J-30s and 3 KC-130J-30s). They will be operated by the two countries, for the missions that each nation needs to perform.
Germany and France, both partners in the A400M Atlas program, decided to acquire a batch of C-130J-30 Super Hercules (the stretched version) to replace their old C-160 Transall, which are now going out of service (the last German C-160 will be retired at the end of this year).
The Airbus A400M was ordered, in part, to replace the Transalls but it could not perform all the missions that the Transalls performed, especially on short runways, as the Atlas is considerably larger.
This was the motivation for the purchase of the Super Hercules, which has better short take-off and landing (STOL) capabilities and on unprepared runways, essential when operating in African deployments (France intervenes militarily in the Sahel against Islamist groupings) or for insertion/extraction of special forces units.
France has already started to relocate its Super Hercules to Evreux. The arrival of the German aircraft is still some months away, as the first C-130J-30 in Luftwaffe colors left Lockheed Martin’s paint shop only on August 28, and has not yet been handed over to its owners.
If all goes according to plan, it is expected that by 2024 the joint Franco-German squadron will be complete, with its 10 Super Hercules operational.
