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The Lockheed MC-130 is the basic designation for a family of special mission aircraft operated by the United States Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), a wing of the Air Education and Training Command, and an AFSOC-gained wing of the Air Force Reserve Command. Based on the C-130 Hercules transport that is built by the Lockheed Corporation, their mission is the infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces, and the air refueling of (primarily) special operations helicopter and tilt-rotor aircraft.
Members of the family include the MC-130E Combat Talon I, MC-130H Combat Talon II, MC-130W Combat/Dragon Spear, MC-130P Combat Shadow, and MC-130J Commando II. A possible MC-130 variant, designated the XFC-130H, did not proceed beyond the development stage, but one of its aircraft became the YMC-130H test bed aircraft for the Combat Talon II. The Air Force is acquiring the new production MC-130J to replace the Combat Talons and Combat Shadows.
The MC-130E was the first Combat Talon and was developed to support clandestine special operations missions during the Vietnam War. Eighteen were created by modifying C-130E transports, and four lost through attrition, but the remainder served more than four decades after their initial modification. An updated Combat Talon II was developed in the 1980s from the C-130H variant of the Hercules and went into service in the 1990s. Four of its 24 original aircraft have been lost in operations. The Combat Shadows were built during the Vietnam War for search and rescue operations and repurposed in the 1980s as AFSOC air-refueling tankers, with the last of the 24 retired in 2015.