From its introduction in the mid-1960s, when the first aircraft were delivered, through the various humanitarian missions, the Falkland Islands conflict and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, right up to the introduction of the J version, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules continues to give outstanding service with the RAF and with an expected retirement date of 2030, this would total a service career lasting for a staggering sixty-four years of continuous operations. Designed with an internal hold the same size and dimensions as the American railroad boxcar, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules could carry a wide variety of cargo over distances of up to 2,950 miles. It offered a great improvement over the eclectic mix of its predecessors, the Blackburn Beverley, Handley Page Hastings and Armstrong Whitworth Argosy, all of which continued to provide support, albeit in a secondary role, within RAF Transport Command once the Hercules was introduced to service. This gave an advanced leap in transport capabilities that the RAF had never had at its disposal until the Hercules joined the active inventory. This book tells the full story of one of the most important aircraft in RAF service over the last fifty years. A workhorse that is also astonishingly adaptable for a range of specialised operations, the Hercules is capable of carrying troops as well as vehicles, moving men from one location to another in peacetime training or inserting special forces teams on clandestine operations in time of war.

"Into the Teeth of the Tiger" provides a vivid, pilot's-eye view of one of the most extended projections of American air power in World War II Asia. Lopez chronicles every aspect of fighter combat in that theater: harrowing aerial battles, interludes of boredom and inactivity, instances of courage and cowardice. Describing different pilots' roles in each type of mission, the operation of the P-40, and the use of various weapons, he tells how he and his fellow pilots faced not only constant danger but also the munitions shortages, poor food, and rat-infested barracks of a remote sector of the war. The author also offers keen observations of wartime China, from the brutalities of the Japanese occupation to the conflict between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and the Communist movement.
This edition of Lopez's acclaimed account features new photographs, most of which have never before been published. Relating how the 23rd Fighter Group continued to win battles even as the Japanese gained ground, "Into the Teeth of the Tiger" is the humorous and insightful memoir of an ace pilot caught in the paradox of victory in retreat.