Let’s face it – the Lockheed Hercules is an iconic aircraft. Since the initial prototype made its first flight well over 60 years ago, the aircraft is still in production, with over 2500 airframes built to date. Personally it is one of my all-time favourite logistical aircraft, mainly because it’s so robust and multi-purpose.
Since introduction back in 1954, Lockheed has built various versions of the Hercules for different roles, including military (C-130) and civilian (L-100) types. While the “Herc” is more known for being involved in military operations whereas the C-130 version is mostly used, the civilian L-100 has also been quite a popular aircraft itself. Overall the Hercules has a global presence virtually in almost every corner of the planet, with examples flying in countries including Mexico, Turkey, United Kingdom, Ethiopia, and even here in South Africa.
So last night(29 August 2017), one of the L-100-30 examples built back in 1975 were parked on the apron at Cape Town International Airport. Thanks to fellow spotter Gary Bester who informed me about this aircraft earlier the day after passing through the airport, so I decided that after dark should be the perfect opportunity to get some unique photos of one beautiful aircraft. The star of the moment was 5X-UCF, also known as “The Silver Lady”, which is owned and operated by Entebbe-based Uganda Air Cargo that specializes in various ad-hoc charter flights and other non-scheduled operations including cargo flights to name a few.
5X-UCF apparently arrived from Uganda in the Western Cape two days prior to when I captured the photos. One would think that during that time the aircraft might mostly be based at CPT, but to our surprise we heard that it was also based at Fisantekraal Airport, an airfield just outside Durbanville in Cape Town’s northern suburbs. This stumbled as a bit of unexpected news, as Fisantekraal isn’t quite known for its larger aircraft operations, and currently the airfield is primarily used for flight school and training flights. Although it seems on Tuesday, for some reason the aircraft did a short ferry flight “down the road” to CPT.
If you wondered why this Hercules visited our city, well it has been confirmed that “The Silver Lady” are currently being used as part of the filming of “The Red Sea Diving Resort”, a 2018 film due to be released which will feature Hollywood stars Chris Evans(Captain America film series) and Ben Kingsley(Shutter Island, and Gandhi), and is currently being filmed mostly in Cape Town and surrounds. Also, in the past various films and TV commercials have been shot at Fisantekraal, which make perfectly sense on why the aircraft would have made a visit(I remember briefly in the mid-2000’s a Namibian-registered DC-6 being used there for the filming of a Peroni beer ad). However, regardless of what you might think, the Hercules is a very capable aircraft, and it should come as no surprise that Fisantekraal despite its runway restrictions, would be a breeze for the mighty Herc to land and take-off at.
Here’s a few more photos from last night’s visit to 5X-UCF. Also thanks to Rayno Snyman for joining me while capturing this beauty of a Hercules.
And as an added bonus photo, I managed to get a picture of the aircraft line-up on Cape Town’s Alpha apron in rainy conditions featuring various local airlines resting overnight before the next batch early departing flights the next morning.
All photos copyright CPT Planespotter.
CPT Planespotter 