In Arizona state, U.S., electronic warfare aircraft EC-130H Compass Call with registration number 73-1590 made its last flight, which became last flight for all aircraft of this type, marking end of their era.
Overall since 1981, only 14 EC-130H Compass Calls were built in U.S., of which only 2-4 such aircraft remained in service. However despite such small quantity, these aircraft played important role in any U.S. armed forces operations. The Aviationist writes about this aircraft's last flight.
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EC-130H Compass Call was used for enemy air defense suppression, communications jamming and other tasks. However, over decades of service, despite all modernizations, EC-130H Compass Call simply became obsolete.
Therefore newest EA-37B Compass Call II aircraft are already being built as replacement. Moreover, apparently EC-130H Compass Call became so hopelessly obsolete that in U.S. they decided not to wait until EA-37B Compass Call II are manufactured in sufficient quantity to cover entire old aircraft fleet retirement.
Speaking about EC-130H Compass Call, impossible not to recall one interesting this-year incident, when iranians announced destroying two such aircraft with one hit at once, comprising effectively half of entire fleet.
However, iranian claims proved false, and destroyed EC-130H Compass Calls existed only in their imagination. Although this does not cancel fact that at airbase where two such aircraft were supposedly struck, Americans suffered very painful losses exceeding $1.3 billion from iranian ballistic missiles and Shaheds.
Returning to EC-130H Compass Call, this aircraft first flew in 1981 and entered U.S. service in 1983. It was built, as one can guess, based on C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft, and for operating not only aircraft but also onboard EW systems, it requires crew of entire 13 persons.
If recalling newest EA-37B Compass Call II, here one can also recall one interesting recent incident. Specifically, apparently in U.S. they decided to scare rashists in Kaliningrad by deploying one of their EA-37B Compass Call IIs there.
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