The cool video in this post features RAF A400M Atlas and a Lockheed C-130J Hercules cargo aircraft doing beach landings at Pembrey sands.
Filmed on Jun. 15, 2022 by our friend Dafydd Phillips, the cool video in this post features Royal Air Force (RAF) A400M Atlas and a Lockheed C-130J Hercules cargo aircraft doing beach landings at Pembrey sands.
‘It was great to catch both an Airbus A400M Atlas and a Lockheed C-130J Hercules conducting tactical landings on Pembrey beach in Wales. We had about three hours of touch and goes, low approaches and landing to full stop on the sands,’ Phillips explains.
As you can see in the clip, titles have been added to show some key differences between the two types.
As we have already explained, from time to time the RAF have training exercises at Pembrey sands to train their pilots to land on the beach.
Usually they carry out training exercises at Pembrey sands about five times a year. Sometimes they use two aircraft (both the A-400M and the C-130J) and sometimes one.
The Hercules is the RAF’s primary tactical transport aircraft and has been the backbone of UK operational tactical mobility tasks since it was brought into service in 1999.
It is highly flexible and has the ability to airdrop a variety of stores and paratroopers, and can operate from natural surface landing zones.
It is frequently used to operate into countries or regions where there is a threat to aircraft as its performance, tactics and defence systems make it the ideal platform for tasks like these.
The A400M Atlas instead provides tactical airlift and strategic lift capabilities complementing those of the Hercules and C-17 fleets.
It has the ability to carry a 37-tonne payload over 2,000nm to established remote civilian and military airfileds, and short unprepared or semiprepared strips. Capable of operating at altitudes up to 40,000ft, Atlas also offers impressive low-level capability.
