Hercules C-130

When I was a kid, my parents would load the bunch of us into the car once each summer and take us to the Gogebic County Airport for a look at a plane landing and taking off.  They must have known when the DC-3 (I think it was) was due and time our trip accordingly, because we were always 'lucky' that a plane did indeed land, and a short while later, take off again. It would be heading for the next stop along it's route across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

After the plane left, we would continue on to the beach at either Black River Harbor or Little Girl's Point, depending on how much Saturday, and gas, my folks were willing to invest.  

I loved to see the planes and once, when I was about seven I think, I flew in one.  

My Aunt, Uncle and family visited us one year while on a grand driving tour around the country.  I was invited to ride back with them to their home in New York, visit for a week, and then to fly back home again. My memory of the flight back is sketchy.  I must have slept most of the way.

Nevertheless, it made an impression.    

I had a number of other positive contacts with aircraft over the years...

• As the National Anthem played to start the very first football game I attended as a freshman at Northern Michigan University, a B-52 did a fly over.  I swore that it's wings reached from one side of the field to the other. (actually, they did)  
• At an airshow at K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base near Marquette, I was able to climb the ladder up into the workings of a B-52. Who knows, maybe it was the very one that did the fly-over. 
• As I was delivering office supplies one morning to that same base a few years later, I was told by the gate guard to pull my truck over to the side and wait. Minutes later, a string of B-52s went thundering into the sky, practically nose to tail, as they took off on some exercise from the runway right next to me.  My truck was vibrating from the roar.  
• I took my girls up over Escanaba for a ride in a four seater from Jon Thorin Aviation. We flew out to the factory where I worked and when I told Jon that I wanted to take some pictures, he said, "Hold on a bit," and put the plane into a downward spiral that leveled out just above the factory.  Wow. I was glad that none of us had eaten before our flight.  
• Marlene, the factory boss's wife, once rode in a stunt plane as it put on a show for all the employees of the factory. (Probably J. T. Aviation again.) Production was put on hold at the factory as all employees trouped outside. A lot of us were holding our breaths as well as she endured loops and rolls and spins. 
• Two fighters from K.I. Sawyer went screaming by above my yard outside Carney one day as I worked on my lawn. Scared the cr*p out of me. I think they may have been F-101's, fighter/interceptors that were on the base at the time.  I hoped that they would repeat the pass on their return trip but was disappointed. I would have loved to have taken that picture. They were at tree-top level.   
• I was able to attend a great many furniture shows over the years.  There is nothing like the feeling of being out of the factory, on board a flight to Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, or some other city, and knowing that all my expenses for the next week would be taken care of by the company.     

Well, you get the idea. The reason I bring all this up is that as we sat on our balcony yesterday afternoon, I had another close encounter.  Jeanne spotted a plane a long ways off.  I guessed that it must be one from the military air base that's located about 10 miles north of Henderson.  I hoped that it would come closer and was not disappointed.  I ran (shuffled) for my camera. It turned out to be a Hercules C-130 and it gave me, for about the next hour, a number of opportunities to get some pictures.  

I learned from Wikipedia that there are more than 40 variants of the Lockheed C-130 that are operating in 60 countries around the world.  

This post is not a complicated one. I simply enjoyed seeing this Hercules fly around Henderson and decided to show it to you. It was big and fairly loud and impressive as it thundered by overhead.  You have to admit, this post probably beats the one I did long ago about benches or the more recent one about drying paint, right?     

Take a look. Maybe there is some part of you that has always liked great big, noisy aircraft too.  

This is just after Jeanne first spotted it. It's hard to see but it's at about a 45 degree angle above and to the right of the corner of the roof of the building on the left. Just visible against a cloud. It's going to get bigger very soon....

Here it comes on its first pass over the building.  

Getting closer to our building...look at those props. The shutter was at 1/640 second. 

Admittedly not a great photo, but I'm showing it to you because it was really roaring right now as it disappeared over our Atrium.  

And now, some other views...

This one shows it passing the palm trees in our circle drive (round about).  The ones that are in the first picture.  

The afternoon we watched this airshow was possibly the nicest, summer-like day we've had so far this spring, and to have such entertainment taking place in front of us made it even better.  I'll be watching for any of the other aircraft that call that Air Base their home.  Cross your fingers with me.       -djf

Update:

Here's a Police helicopter that came by two days later. That was taken at 1/800 second.