Lockheed eyes Indo-Pacific in push to sell newest C-130 variant

News just in ...
Fri, February 18, 2022, 10:58 PM
MELBOURNE, Australia — Lockheed Martin foresees more opportunities for the C-130J turboprop airlifter in the Indo-Pacific region, highlighting the efficiencies of the latest version over legacy variants as the key selling point.Speaking during a briefing at the Singapore Airshow, the company’s vice president for global pursuits, Randy Howard, said the C-130J Super Hercules “represents, pound for pound, significant value for our customers.” He said the company continues to add capabilities to the platform through block upgrades and is still in strong demand, with the production line in Georgia working on an order backlog that would keep it open for several more years.Some of that backlog comes from regional countries, with Indonesia and New Zealand having five aircraft on order each. They will add to the 495 C-130Js delivered globally over the past two decades.There are also four other Indo-Pacific operators of the C-130J: the air forces of Australia, Bangladesh, India and South Korea.Lockheed Martin revealed in November at the Dubai Air Show that the Royal Australian Air Force was considering buying a further 24 C-130Js and six KC-130J tankers.

Potential future customers in the region for the C-130J include Singapore and Thailand, who are both operating legacy C-130 models and have not refreshed their medium or heavy airlift capabilities in recent years.Thailand has already expressed interest in replacing its C-130Hs, with a defense whitepaper in 2020 calling for a dozen new airlifters. The program would be split into three acquisition phases of four aircraft each between 2022 and 2029.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/lockheed-eyes-indo-pacific-push-155802170.html

and remember this info : Thursday 1 July 2021: Sydney, Quickstep Holdings Limited
(ASX:QHL), Australia’s leading aerospace composites
business, announced that it delivered the 200th shipset of
wing flaps for the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft,
under its existing contract with Lockheed Martin. Quickstep
has a five-year contract in place with Lockheed Martin to
provide wing flaps for the C-130J through to 2024.
https://www.quickstep.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/QHL-200th-C130J-Shipset-July-1.pdf
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Go QHL !! hopefully news will flow very soon ..... !