MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Quick. Up in the air. Through the clouds and rain. It’s a plane braving the elements and making a two-week voyage to land here. The Marine Corps has decided to upgrade its C-12 fleet, starting with replacing the C-12s here Dec. 21.
“What we are doing here is replacing the older Fox model C-12s with the new Whiskey models that we have coming in,” Lt. Col. Michael R. Coletta, Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron commanding officer, said. “We will eventually have two C-12Ws on station.”
The C-12 is a military version of the King Air 200 aircraft.
“We have two on station right now; we are also receiving a opportunity to participate in exercises transporting passengers or equipment,” Fisher said. “We can also provide on-call support to anyone who needs to be medically evacuated.” The C-12 and its crew started their journey Dec. 9 in New Orleans.
Over the next 13 days, they flew to New York, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Jordan, Dubai, India, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and finally touched down here.
“We had two choices,” Coletta said. “We could have went east, straight to Japan. The downside to that is it’s in the middle of the winter with bad weather. There is one island they would have to hit perfectly to refuel, and I didn’t want to have that big of a risk.”
With safety as the number one priority, the welcoming party on the flight line felt as if Santa brought an early Christmas present.
“This is great. I feel like a kid on Christmas right now,” Fisher said. “This has been seven months in the process to get the C-12 here, so it’s an early Christmas present for us
The crew is just getting back to spend Christmas with their families, so everything worked out perfectly.” The older aircraft will make the same journey but in reverse.
The old C-12Fs are slated to be delivered to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz.