Marshall stays strong for world’s Hercules fleet

Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group is committed to ensuring that the C-130 fleets it services across the globe will continue with vital missions as healthcare agencies rise to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We maintain the fleets of C-130s - the Hercules - for between ten and 20 nations,” said a spokesperson for the company. “Some are already carrying out medical evacuations from one part of their country to another. The Hercules is the workhorse of air forces across the globe, thanks to its versatility - it requires only short runways to take off and land - and we do all the maintenance to keep them flying.

“A lot of people are coming to work in difficult circumstances and we’re carrying on and continuing to provide the service.

“We have a skilled and dedicated workforce keeping the C-130s up and running.”

The company, headquartered in Cambridge, currently builds, services and maintains a wide range of military equipment for armed forces across the world, much of which is forming a significant part of their respective government’s coronavirus response planning. Still the go-to workhorse for many global air forces, including the Royal Air Force, has remained in continuous production since its first flight in 1954 and is already seeing growing demand for availability as nations gear up to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

Marshall chief executive officer Alistair McPhee comments: “We are always incredibly proud of the work that we do to protect people in critical situations and that has never been more relevant than right now.

“Multiple customers have already been using their C-130 fleet to carry out medevac repatriation missions and deploying them to get supplies to remote areas.

“We are also anticipating more demand for medical equipment and deployable infrastructure as armed forces are called upon to support the capacity needs of health services across the globe.

“It is vitally important that we are able to stand ready to help in whatever capacity we can over the weeks and months ahead and I really want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the team, in particular our frontline employees, who are doing an amazing job in very difficult circumstances to make sure we don’t and won’t let our customers down.”

Marshall also has a number of the field hospitals it builds at its Newmarket Road site available.

“We have some we store for the Ministry of Defence ready for use anywhere in the world, whether or not their use is related to Covid-19,” concluded the spokesperson.