Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 22, 2017
In Australian service, Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft have been operated by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). A total of forty-eight of the aircraft have served the RAAF since 1958, when No. 36 Squadron began replacing its Douglas C-47 Dakotas, and the C-130J model is still in Australian service today. As the RAAF's first strategic airlifters, the aircraft have frequently been used to deliver disaster relief in Australia and the Pacific region, as well as to support military deployments overseas. They saw extensive service during the Vietnam War, transporting troops and cargo to South East Asia and undertaking aeromedical evacuation. Nineteen of the RAAF's fleet of twenty-four C-130s took part in relief efforts in 1974–75 after Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin. Since then, the aircraft have been involved in humanitarian missions to New Guinea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bali, Sumatra, and New Zealand. They have also seen service during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Fijian coups in 1987, operations in Somalia in 1993, INTERFET operations in East Timor in 1999–2000, and beginning in 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Full article...)