Mike Lief has a sweet account of the last flight of the C-130E. I know that the technology needs to be updated–in fact I get angry when it doesn’t seem to be updated fast enough for safety, as in the case of the shuttle fleet–but it’s still sad to see the old birds go. A description of the new 130J is here, with diagrams and specs here. It frankly surprises me they’re still building turboprop engines rather than going all jet, but that’s a total outsider’s surprise, as I’m the farthest thing from a technology expert imaginable. Mike makes a good point about the crews: no more navigator or flight engineer. They’ll have only the two pilots and a loadmaster. At least they’ll still have some company, but I’d imagine camaraderie and one-upsmanship with the navs and engineers will be missed.