Hercules fleet 'stretched by war'
www.bbc.co.uk
31st July 2007
The officer in charge of RAF Lyneham has said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching the resources of its Hercules fleet. Group Captain Paul Atherton said it was not possible to use the whole fleet because only those with the correct defences could be sent to Afghanistan or Iraq.

"We are stretched and just about keeping our head above water. It is a very big ask of the Hercules force."

It is 40 years this week that the first Hercules arrived at Lyneham, Wiltshire. The C130 or "Fat Albert" the nickname affectionally given to the workhorse of the RAF, was brought from American based company Lockheed Martinin the 1960s and has been a familiar sight in the skies above Wiltshire since then.

Air lift
It was almost at the end of service life in 1982 when it was used in the Falklands War. Crews working out of Ascension Island refuelled in mid-air on 25-hour missions to supply the British task force.

In 1984 it was drafted in to help the famine in Ethiopia where it worked around the clock dropping grain and medical supplies, at times just 50ft (15.25m) above the ground.

In the first seven months of the first Gulf War, 40,000 flying hours and 12 million miles were clocked up as stores and equipment were dropped to British forces fighting in the desert.

Two years later it was involved in the conflict in the Balkans and, in 1992, the plane helped with the Sarajevo airlift.

The overstretch echoes concerns announced by former Defence Secretary Mr Geoff Hoon in February 2002. Britain's armed forces are stretched to the limit and need more resources to "engage more fully in the world".

He told BBC One's On The Record: "We are operating at the limits of our capabilities and it is important that it is recognised that there is a limit to what we can achieve. "We clearly do have to respond to catastrophic humanitarian situations, but equally we have to realise that there are always limits. There is only so much that a country of the size and resources of Britain can manage. If we are going to engage more fully in the world then obviously we will need the resources to achieve that."