This morning between 09:10 and 09:19 CEST two USAF HC-130J “Combat King” (reg. 09-5709, 10-5716 – callsign KING04/05) has departed from NAS Sigonella.
In these minutes (10:00) they are in flight off southern Tunisia southbound.
The HC-130J is an USAF combat rescue variant of the C-130J with changes for in-flight refueling of helicopters, including refueling pods on underwing pylons and capabilities to receive fuel inflight from boom-equipped tankers. The USAF HC-130J eliminates the enlisted Flight Engineer position, but unlike the USAF C-130J airlift version, still retains a Combat Systems Officer/Navigator position.
Is there some sort of Exercise going on or something else? First the other Special Operations Aircraft from yesterday, now these two. I wonder what will come next!