By Scott Wallace
Contributing writer
- Editor’s note: To see footage of that historic loop-de-loop, go to an online search engine and type in “C-130 loop.”
Peachtree – Capt. Wayne Roberts – a retired U.S. Navy/Lockheed test, the only one ever to have looped the giant Hercules C-130 cargo plane – spoke with students and faculty in the aviation class at Tri-County Early College High School on Feb. 11, telling stories from his 41-year career as a military and civilian test pilot.
Roberts was invited to the school as part of the inaugural Aviation Science program at the Early College, a group of studies aimed at students interested in careers in aviation – from ground crew jobs to airport administration to Federal Aviation Agency-certified pilots. On this day, students came to hear a firsthand account from the pilot who flew a C-130 cargo plane into the Guinness Book of World Records.
The school’s Aviation Science effort has been supported by a local organization called the Western Carolina Youth Aviation Foundation.
Roberts told the students that the C-130’s basic airframe was developed in the 1950s, but because Lockheed got it right initially, little had been changed since then, save for upgrades to its engines and avionics. For example, its current computer, Heads-Up Display, is borrowed from the F-22 fighter jet.
“There are bigger and faster cargo planes,” Roberts said, “but none with the versatility and maneuverability of the C-130.”
Roberts said a combination of the straight – not swept back – wing and four super-powerful turbo-project engines give the C-130 its superior performance capabilities, allowing it to take off and land on the shortest of airfields and perform aerobatics unheard of for a plane of its size – 98-feet long, 38-feet tall, a 133-feet wingspan and 155,000 pounds fully loaded.
“The engines and props are set far forward of the wing,” he added, using a scale model of the plane to illustrate his point, “so when full power is applied, the prop-wash actually increases the lift flowing over the wings by a significant amount. This added lift gives the plane a virtual speed that is 20 knots faster than what the craft is actually flying.”
Robert’s career began in the early 1970s, when the Vietnam War and national draft were in full swing but nobody wanted to enlist. He decided to buck the tide, cut his hair and join the Navy, signing up for flight training and test pilot school.
“I got flight experience you couldn’t buy anywhere else,” he said.
“It was like a club. I flew everything from fighters to transports. Because I was also a mechanical engineer by degree, I got to contribute to the design of many of the planes I flew.”
Roberts emphasized to those in attendance that he was actually a lousy student, a comment that drew appreciative exclamations from a number of like-minded students.
“But I didn’t let that keep me from going after what I wanted,” he added with a grin. There were more smiles, this time from teachers.
After 12 years in the Navy, he applied for a job at Lockheed-Martin and was hired almost immediately. He spent the rest of his career there working on a variety of aircraft, including the even bigger transport, the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy.
“People think I must have extraordinarily high flight hours, but I actually don’t,” Roberts said.
He explained that so much time is spent on planning there is not much time to fly. “We worked on the C-5 numbers for two years before we took her up for a single, one-day test flight.”
Roberts spent much of his time Tuesday going through what it was like to prepare for an airshow – a festival for show-goers and a giant advertisement for aircraft manufacturers.
“Safety is paramount,” he said. “You have to prove to the show’s promoters, as well as your own company, that your routine is safe. That can take months of preparations and presentations.
“Then during the show, you have to perform the routine exactly as planned in your pre-flight brief. Any deviation at all, and you may never be allowed to fly in that show again, maybe not in any show anywhere.
“Finally,” Roberts added,” you also have to show what the plane can do – show it off to the limit of its capabilities. It’s a waste of time and money if you don’t.”
In other words, if you want to be a test pilot you have to be part showman, part safety guru, and part Top Gun pilot. Roberts showed he was all of that in July 2018 at the Farnsborough air show in the United Kingdom, when he took his company’s beloved Hercules C-130 aloft and did what no man had done before, proving to everyone that both he and the C-130 truly had “the right stuff.”