Navy Lt. Jim Flatley made history in 1963 by landing a C-130 transport on the deck of an aircraft carrier. It wasn’t an emergency – it was a test to determine whether a Hercules could be used as a “Super COD” (carrier on-board delivery) aircraft. Flatley and his crew proved that the Hercules’ short-field landing ability applies on the sea as well as in the dirt. The feasibility of landing a C-130 with a substantial payload on a carrier had been clearly demonstrated, but in the end, simply wasn’t practical.

A total of 21 full-stop landings and 29 touch-and-go landings were made on four separate trips to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal (CVA-59) in 1963. The trials aircraft, an in-service Marine Corps KC-130F tanker, underwent only minor modifications at Lockheed’s plant in Marietta in early October 1963 prior to the carrier tests.

The first test took place on October 30 near Jacksonville, Fla. The Forrestal’s flight deck had been cleared—the arresting wires had been removed since the KC-130F had no tail hook and the air wing’s aircraft were either flown ashore or had been parked on the hangar deck. As the result of bad weather (40-knot winds with gusts to 60 knots), the crew made 42 approaches to the ship to get 19 touch-and-go landings in on the first day.

On November 8, Flatley, Lt. Cmdr. W. W. “Smokey” Stovall (the copilot), Brennan, and Lockheed test pilot Ted Limmer approached the Forrestal underway off Cape Cod, Mass. Flatley put the propellers into reverse pitch while still 10-15 feet in the air and settled on the deck. At touchdown, the KC-130 was in full reverse and stopped in 270 feet.

The KC-130 weighed 85,000 pounds on the first landing, and landings were made in progression up to a gross weight of 121,000 pounds. At maximum weight, the crew used only 745 feet for takeoff and 460 feet for landing. One landing at a weight of 109,000 pounds required 495 feet to stop and that was in a heavy squall. At the end of the tests, the crew simply took off from the point on the deck where they had stopped. On takeoff, there was only 15 feet clearance between the KC-130’s wingtip and the ship’s control “island.”