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It is the mother of all U.S. military aircraft and with 45 airmen onboard “the Hercules” touched down at the Phillip Goldson International Airport on Sunday. Belize is the last stop for the c-130j on the U.S. Air Force’s “operation southern partner.” It will be here for a week during which there will be military to military partnership between the airmen from the U.S. Air Force and Belize’s BDF soldiers and coast guard officers. Today we got an explanation and a simulation onboard the giant aircraft. Keith Swift reports.

Keith Swift Reporting,
This is a U.S. military C-130J Hercules airplane. It is a tactical aircraft big enough to transport a 6 wheel cargo truck and tough enough to land in rough jungle terrain.

Kenny Sierra, Deputy Commander for Southern Partner
“It is a state of the art airplane, one of the newest aircraft we have in the inventory. It is composed of 1 pilot and one co-pilot, one low master and one crew chief. Their capabilities are incredible – they can drop personnel, they can drop cargo, they can carry persons from point A to point B. It is state of the art. The mission of this aircraft is basically to carry personnel, carry cargo, and dropping personnel out of the aircraft like we are going to see today and dropping cargo as well.”

But the mission today for this C130-J Hercules was to simulate an over water search and rescue jump by a combat search and rescue team from the United States Airforce.

Lt. Col. Ganney Dortch, BDF Chief of Staff
“We will be given a demonstration of a water search and rescue exercise which will pretty much involve BDF participation, the Coast Guard participation, along with our US Southern Partners.”

Kenny Sierra,
“We are going to have a joint exercise with Coast Guard in Belize.”

To prepare for their plunge – the airmen were suited up – every harness was tightened, every buckle fastened, and every nip tucked for the over water search and rescue simulation.

Brandon Smith, U.S. Air Force
“We got a zodiac boat with rolled up inside of a parachute package that we built yesterday. We will push that out the back of the aircraft and we are going to parachute behind it and then de-rig it once we hit the water and inflate it up and head back in.”

And soon as the plane went up – they went down.

Brandon Smith,
“We’re just here to give different ideas and exchange some information with each other and some knowledge and show them what our capabilities are and some of the things we can do. It works very well for us in civilian search and rescue mission, far out to sea, stuff like that and it could be potentially something that they would want to look at to doing in the future.”

And while they jumped – we stayed on for a cross country trip by air which took us over the great Blue Hole and Mayan ruins. It is all a part of Operation Southern Partnership - a military to military exchange of techniques and tactics.

Kenny Sierra,
“You will see today you will see how two different forces can work together, the Airforce and the Coast Guard. They are going to work jointly and that is very good and we can see can the see the communication that is going to be between them and the cooperation, they are going to be exchanging vital skills.”

Lt. Col. Ganney Dortch,
“It is not really a training per se, it is a subject matter exchange. We have these guys that are specialized in certain things and they have come to Belize to share their experience with our military personnel and as a result of that we will make whatever necessary adaptive process to ensure that our procedures are changed and to be better efficient.”

Kenny Sierra,
“Operation Southern Partner is the US Southcom cooperation initiative. It is basically to build long term relationships with Belize. We are going to be learning from you as far as techniques and procedures that the Coast Guard uses and then we’ll share two way communication on how we do our operations as well.”

And while 45 airmen that arrived on the C130-J Hercules are here for military to military exchange, they will participate in community outreach such as painting a school and entertaining the elderly.

Kenny Sierra,
“We arrived here on Sunday and our intention thanks to the hospitality and invitation of Lt. Col. Dortch we will be here until Saturday morning.”

The Hercules will head home to Arizona on Saturday. The U.S. military has 68 similar C130-J Hercules aircrafts. Each one is valued at just under US$50 million.