About 200 people gathered at 17 Wing Winnipeg on Saturday, 24 October 2026, to say goodbye to an old friend. Backdropped by a grey CC-130H Hercules, IL Royal Canadian Air Force held a retirement ceremony for the last of its H-model Hercules, the four-engined workhorses that have carried Canadian troops, rescuers and refugees since 1974.

The ceremony ended the way it had to: with a fly-by from one of the two CC-130Hs still flying out of Winnipeg. Those two aircraft will be taken out of service on 1 November and 18 November, 17 Wing commander Col. Curtis Wright told the Winnipeg Free Press. After that, the H-model’s Canadian story is over.

Winnipeg-based 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron is the last RCAF unit flying the type. Its search-and-rescue role passes to the CC-295 Kingfisher, which the Free Press reports will fly search-and-rescue missions out of 17 Wing from November.

Fifty-two years of the “mighty Herc”

Canada was an early customer for Lockheed’s airlifter, taking delivery of four C-130B models in late 1960. The H-model followed in 1974, and for half a century it did a bit of everything. The RCAF describes it as a search-and-rescue aircraft first, able to carry roughly 80 passengers, operate from short unpaved strips and fly more than 7,200 kilometres.

At the ceremony, speakers ran through a career that stretched from the Arctic to Afghanistan. CC-130Hs supported Canada’s war in Afghanistan after the 11 September 2001 attacks. In 2011, 435 Squadron crews refuelled NATO-led coalition fighters over Libya. In 2010 the aircraft flew personnel and supplies to Haiti after the earthquake.

The tribute also remembered crews lost in crashes over the decades, and the fallen Canadian personnel whose remains came home aboard the aircraft. Maj.-Gen. Chris McKenna, commander of 1 Canadian Air Division, put it in personal terms.

Through a fire cloud at Norway House

The Herc’s last big domestic job came in 2025, when CC-130Hs airlifted thousands of evacuees out of northern Manitoba communities threatened by wildfires under Operation Lentus. McKenna told the audience about one crew that could not land at Norway House because the runway was surrounded by flames and smoke.

The missed-approach routing took them through a pyrocumulus cloud, a towering column of smoke, ash and violent turbulence. According to McKenna, the crew flew the aircraft to its limits to get out. The Hercules was so badly damaged that it never returned to service, but everyone aboard came home.

Skies Plus spent a day with 435 Squadron and its CC-130H Hercules search-and-rescue crews in Winnipeg for the RCAF centennial in 2024.

Domestically, the Winnipeg aircraft spent decades on search-and-rescue missions across central Canada, from lost hunters to missing civilian aircraft. That is the work the Kingfisher now inherits.

Kingfishers, firebombers and museums

IL CC-295 Kingfisher is a smaller, twin-engined aircraft built for search and rescue. The RCAF says its integrated sensors can spot people or objects from more than 40 kilometres away, even in low light. It already flies from 19 Wing Comox E 14 Wing Greenwood, with Winnipeg and 8 Wing Trenton listed as future locations.

Because the Kingfisher will not be used for transport, the Winnipeg flight engineers and loadmasters are moving to other bases and fleets, Wright said. Canada’s tactical airlift continues with the CC-130J, the RCAF’s newest Hercules model, flown from Trenton.

The old airframes are not headed for the scrapyard. In August, the federal government announced the conditional sale of 10 retired CC-130Hs to Coulson Aviation of Port Alberni, British Columbia, which plans to convert them into aerial firefighters once they are certified for civil use. The remaining two of the 12-aircraft fleet will go on public display at bases or museums, and Wright said one could end up in Winnipeg.

CBC News Manitoba, August 2026: Winnipeggers line up to see a retiring Hercules before it heads to a museum display.

There is one more public farewell. A CC-130H and two CF-18 Hornets are scheduled to fly over Princess Auto Stadium at around 6 p.m. local time on Sunday, 25 October, during the NHL Heritage Classic between the Winnipeg Jets and the Montreal Canadiens. For a workhorse that spent 52 years doing the heavy lifting out of sight, one of its last public appearances will be in front of a stadium full of hockey fans.

Sources: Winnipeg Free Press, CTV News Winnipeg, ChrisD.ca (DND information), Royal Canadian Air Force (CC-130H, CC-130J and CC-295 aircraft pages), Public Services and Procurement Canada, Skies Magazine, Wikipedia (Lockheed C-130 Hercules). Featured photo: BriYYZ / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0