Britain’s retired Hercules head to Türkiye in December

Türkiye will receive the first two of 12 C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft it is buying from the UK in December, once maintenance on them is finished in Britain, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Oct. 1, with the rest of the former Royal Air Force aircraft to follow in stages.

The ministry also said crews are already training to fly and maintain them. Six pilots and six technicians are training in the United States, and 29 maintenance personnel are training in the UK. It did not give a schedule for the remaining 10 aircraft or say where the first two will be based.

The aircraft are stretched C-130J-30 models that the Royal Air Force retired in June 2023, when the UK decided to rely on the larger Airbus A400M for its tactical airlift. Türkiye confirmed the purchase in October 2025, and the 12 aircraft were handed over to Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge, England, for overhaul and modernization before delivery. Turkish officials have said Türkiye plans to take over routine maintenance of the fleet itself once its personnel complete type training.

The UK government said in December 2025 that the sale and related work were worth more than £550 million ($727 million) to the British defense sector and Marshall Aerospace and would support about 1,400 skilled jobs in Cambridge, Turkish Minute reported.

The C-130Js will fill a gap in Türkiye’s airlift fleet. The Turkish Air Force operates about 10 A400Ms and a fleet of older C-130B and C-130E Hercules, many of them decades old. Those older C-130s were grounded after an accident in November 2025 near the border between Georgia and Azerbaijan, leaving the air force dependent on its A400Ms for heavy airlift, Aviation Week reported.

The C-130J is the latest version of Lockheed Martin’s long-serving four-engine turboprop transport, with a two-pilot glass cockpit, digital flight controls and more efficient Rolls-Royce engines than earlier Hercules models. The stretched -30 version has a longer cargo hold, letting it carry more troops, pallets or vehicles than the standard aircraft.

Türkiye is not the only buyer of the RAF’s surplus Super Hercules fleet. The UK has previously sold former RAF C-130Js to Bangladesh and Bahrain.