US Coast Guard

More than 10 years ago and still one of my favorite movements ever at Madeira.

A previously unprocessed and unpublished pic of US Coast Guard C-130J 2005 at Madeira.
Back then it was based at Elisabeth City USCG Air Station.

Details on the KC-10 Extender

Remember the USAF KC-10 ( 84-0186) from a couple of entries ago (check HERE)?

Here's a few more details on this big bird...

Looks like the refueller also can get refuelled...

A nice detail...it's almost like looking at a model with an open cut, so we can se the inside...
This one was configured with some passenger seats, besides the cargo and fuel areas

A close-up on guidance lights for the refueling systems

As far as I know it was the only time we got one of these around here...(here with 2005, a C-130J from USCG)

4th of July: US Independence and US Traffic at Madeira

Was reading some online news today, when I remembered that North-Americans celebrate its independence today...

Congrats!
It's a nice reason to share some pics of US Military Planes around here...(not usual visitors...)

USCG C-130J 2005 together with an USAF KC-10 Extender ( 84-0186)

05-0730, a beautifull USAF C-40 (737)

40087, small Learjet from (C-21) from USAFE(urope), with TF-BBE, from Bluebird Cargo entering the apron

and yet another pic of the KC-10 Stratotanker....

As far as I know it was the only time we got one of these around here...

2006, another C-130J from USCG that was here the same time the KC-10 and the 2005

Just curious....

I'm just curious....
One of my most viewed entries is "Nov.9th - New Colors, Winglets and others..."

Even today (the last 24H) it was by far my most viewed post, way ahead the last entry, "

US Coast Guard 2005 at Madeira", in my opinion, a really nice entry...

Can anyone explain me the special interest in that post??

US Coast Guard 2005 at Madeira

Like I promissed on the last post, Here are some pics of a really great day, were we had at Madeira a couple of C-130J from US Coast Guard a a KC-10 Stratotanker, from US Air Force.

Definitely a unique day at Madeira...

The Coast Guard C-130 were here to to a personel replacing on one if its ships that was scaling Funchal.

As far as I can remember, it was the only time I saw C-130 around here that weren't from PoAF.

They were also the first C-130J I saw live, on a time that there was much talking about the possible purchase of this model, to the PoAF...

For now, I'll just share the pics of one of the C-130's...the 2005...and Wow, they look great on the Coast Guard livery!!!

This Week's Photo

 

C-130...

Yesterday was browsing through my pics and came up to some pics of this really speciall day (specially for a military aviation fan like me....)

It's clearly the silhouette of a C-130 and at first sight it would seem like it's nothing out of the ordinary...Portuguese C-130 are common around here...but...the silhouette (and the label....lol) also shows that clearly it's not a PoAF C-130...they don't have those propellers....

The next post will bring more pics of this great day...It was the only time I remeber seeing other than the PoAF C-130 at Madeira, and they came on the double...
It's not every day we go to the airport in time for the sunrise, but there days well worth it....

Unusual night traffic

These last days we've had some unsuall night-stoppers at Madeira, due to weather conditions not only in Madeira but also in the rest of Europe.

Last Sunday, Primera had to divert to Porto Santo and then it came a few hours later to Madeira but, probably due to flight limits of the crew it stayed for the night, departing Monday morning.

Monday, Luxair arrived about 3 hours later and stayed also for the night, departing this morning.

Unfortunately didn't get any night shots of these birds so, decided to share a couple of very unusual night-stoppers...

The first and only time we had a KC-10 around here and it ended up staying a few more days than expected due to a technical problem.

The C-130 was one of the new J versions for the US Coast Guard. As far as I know it was also the first and only time we had these around here. We had the regs. 2005 and 2006 from USCG, scales related to the presence of a USCG ship that was in Funchal port.
US military traffic is more the Lajes "department" :)) so, when we get these birds around here is allways a great event...