The Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft chartered by OSRL to provide regional wide area aerial dispersant application undergoes regular scheduled maintenance in accordance with regulatory requirements.
The aircraft maintenance ensures the aircraft's inherent safety and reliability levels and corresponding response readiness.
All of the scheduled light maintenance is done with the aircraft in-situ at Senai, Malaysia and performed so that the aircraft's mobilisation times are not compromised.
However, heavy maintenance, known as a "C-Check", requires a large majority of the aircraft's components to be inspected.
As a result, the C-Check puts the aircraft out of service for a period of time. Therefore, when C-Checks are due on the OSRL chartered C-130 aircraft, we perform a planned aircraft change-out to ensure continued readiness and service continuity.
The current OSRL Lockheed C130 aircraft (N121TG) based in Senai is now due its C-Check maintenance. The aircraft has therefore been changed out and replaced with an identical Lockheed C-130 with registration number N117TG.
N117TG has recently completed its C-Check maintenance, which included several system upgrades and has had the OSRL livery applied.
N117TG is fitted with the Rapid Installation and Deployment Spray System (RIDSS). It has undergone ground trials and fulfilled other acceptance criteria to satisfy OSRL's requirements. A low level spray exercise is also planned to take place next week.
Therefore, from now on the Lockheed C-130 registration N117TG will be OSRL's primary aircraft based in Senai, Malaysia providing wide aerial dispersant application service for our members in Asia-Pacific.
N121TG (the outgoing aircraft) has been released to return to Mesa, USA, for its maintenance checks.
If you keep details such as OSRL aircraft registration numbers in any of your response or logistics plans, please update them now to account for this change.
Be assured OSRL's Asia-Pacific wider area aerial dispersant capability remains response ready.
As always, we remain just a phone call away, ready to support you and your operations. Should you have any questions, please contact our Duty Managers.