Discovering the Common Platform of the 8 C-130 Airplane Versions

[armin11]

hi,
there are 8 versions of c-130 .what is the platform that is common in them?
Can anyone help?

 

[rivman71]

Practically every c-130 is different and there's no easy way to discern what may be common or unique between any two aircraft. each c-130 was designed and constructed using a mod-on-mod system. Hence each new aircraft is a modification of an existing aircraft. so if someone wants a new tanker, they take the last tanker they produced and "modify" it for the new tanker. there are some major overhalls of structure and engines, etc. but you would be hard pressed to figure it out. You would literally have to dig through 50 years of drawings to do it.

 

[armin11]

I know it's hard to do,but this is our CAD lesson homework and it should be done soon.Only the structure of the airplane is needed and I need the basic structure that these 8 airplanes are modified from it.

 

[ank_gl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-130_Hercules#C-130A_model

wikipedia lists all the versions of C130 aircrafts. The first one was delivered in 56(way too back, no CAD at that time). page also lists the modifications in the subsequent variants, eg increased fuel tank capacity, wing redesign, stretching of fuselage, modifies avionics etc

In terms of structure, you might need to look at the dimensions, fuel capacity, wing design etc.

 

[armin11]

Thanks for the useful link,but I only have to print the 8 maps for the 8 versions and compare them then sketch the simple structure platform,but I can't find these maps for 8 versions and I don't know any book that has them in it.

 

[mp3car]

You are right, that the "basic" structure would likely be the same across all platforms, with modifications that ank_gl mentioned... however, I work for an aerospace company (Not Lockheed) and all i can say is good luck :(

This professor of yours may be asking you to come up with data that is considered proprietary to Lockheed (not to imply the AF, Navy and other groups don't have it). A lot of aircraft data is proprietary, including maintenance and crew training manuals that are given from the manufacturer to aircraft operators (commercial as well as military). For example, if you look at a wire diagram manual that an operator has for a 737 for their maintenance crews, even in the hands of an aircraft operator, it will have "Boeing Proprietary" on it. That being said, some proprietary data always seems to make it on the web... but less likely for military aircraft... Too bad the assignment isn't for a 737, since there are so many of them in operation (more than 6600 delivered and over 2100 open orders), you could probably find manuals online that would give you detailed structural information of all the different models.

The only thing i think you could readily do, would be as ank_gl said... Look at all the specs you can find, look at pictures and try to derive a scale from the pictures based on the dimensions that you can find (like the way you can take a picture square-on of a two people standing next to each other, and if you knew the exact height of one of them, you could come up with an extremely accurate estimate of the other). The hard part would be in this case, other than the line-art drawing linked below, pictures you find are going to be at various angles, which, to be as accurate as you can, it becomes a more complicated 3D/perspective problem to derived dimensions of other measurements based on measurements you know...

Sorry I can't be of more help :( Keep us updated on this, b/c I am curious to see how the teacher expected you to "acquire" these drawings, unless they expect you to do as we suggested, look at all the publicly available data to attempt to derive other data (like the exact locations of things, wing width, angles, how tall is the door, how many feet the doors are from the nose, etc).

For example, using this image, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:C-130H_Line_Drawing.svg it appears the horizontal stabilizer (which as you probably know, stabilizes the vertical direction and with the elevator controls pitch) appears to be about a ratio of 1:2.4 of the wingspan, which would give a width of approximately 53.7' for the horizontal stab...

 

[armin11]

Thank you for your time,I'll keep you updated.I don't think it has to be that accurate.Our professor only wants us to draw something less accurate only showing what was the basic structure,not any aspect ratio or dimension,only a simple good sketch .