The C-130J can carry 20,000 pounds of payload over distances of some 4,000 miles without refueling. These numbers, previously unheard of in tactical operations, put the Super Hercules firmly in the envelope for strategic operations.

The Hercules earned its sea legs in November 1963 when a Marine KC-130F was flown to a first landing on the USS Forrestal (CVA-59) while the aircraft carrier was underway in the Atlantic. Lt. Jim Flatley and Lt. Cmdr. W. W. "Smokey" Stovall were at the controls and completed a series of twenty-one full-stop landings and takeoffs at increasingly higher weights.

A crowd of maintainers, staff, wives, and husbands stand in anticipation on the ramp at Aalborg AB in Denmark. They are waiting for the planes and crew of 721 Squadron, the only transport unit of the Royal Danish Air Force, to arrive at their new home at this base in northern Jutland.