The modifications under Thin Slice and its August 1966 successor Heavy Chain were code-named Rivet Yard, and the four C-130Es came to be known as 'Yards'. In 1964, Lockheed was ordered to adapt the C-130Es after six C-123B Providers modified for 'unconventional warfare' under Project Duck Hook proved inadequate for the new MACV-SOG. 64-0506 and -0507, but with all numbers 'sanitized' from the aircraft), were assigned to Project Thin Slice to develop a low-level clandestine penetration aircraft for Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia. Two highly classified testbed aircraft (originally serial no. The Combat Talon was developed between December 1964 and January 1967 by Lockheed Air Services (LAS) at Ontario, California, as the result of a study by Big Safari, the USAF's program office that modifies and sustains special mission aircraft.

MC-130E Combat Talon MC-130E Combat Talon dispensing flares MC-130 nose Development As of May 2016, the Air Force has taken delivery of 33 of the planned 37 -J models. The MC-130J, which became operational in 2011, is the new-production variant that is replacing the other special operations MC-130s. The Combat Spear was developed in 2006 as an inexpensive version of the Combat Talon II but was reconfigured and designated the AC-130W Stinger II in 2012. The Combat Shadows were built during the Vietnam War for search and rescue operations and repurposed in the 1980s as AFSOC air-refueling tankers the last of the 24 retired in 2015. Four of the original 24 H-series aircraft have been lost in operations. An update, the MC-130H Combat Talon II, was developed in the 1980s from the C-130H and went into service in the 1990s. 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. The first of the variants, the MC-130E, was developed to support clandestine special operations missions during the Vietnam War. Based on the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport, the MC-130s' missions are the infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces, and the air refueling of (primarily) special operations helicopter and tilt-rotor aircraft.

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.

Interior air force ac-130 gunship