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DC-130A Drone Carrier

Description and Model

The C-130 is one of the "jack of all trades" aircraft types that just keep finding new and varied things to do. In the case of the C-130, it most of them exceptionally well. From humble beginnings as a simple cargo aircraft, the type currently flies missions ranging from ground attack to electronic warfare to command-and-control to airborne rescue, just to name a few. One of the missions that provided for some extremely colorful aircraft was that of airborne drone launch and control platform.

When Testors (Italeri) released the DC-130A in 1/72nd scale, it was a natural for me to buy it. While not as glamorous as the fast jets, the C-130 holds a high spot in my favorite aircraft list. I found the colorful markings to be one of the intriguing things for building this model. For construction, I kept it simple and mostly out-of-the-box, doing only the following things to the stock kit.

• I swapped the engine nacelles and propellers from an AC-130A kit to get the correct three-blade style of propellers for the aircraft. The DC-130 kit from Testors provides the four bladed propellers, which many C-130A aircraft (drone carrier and otherwise) were upgraded to use, but the US Navy aircraft that is the subject of the kit decals was not one of the aircraft to get upgraded.
• I added the line antennas stretching from the fuselage to the tail top.