Weird C-130 variant

Factual Questions
1

Saturday, I was helping a friend move near McDill AFB in Tampa. I heard the unmistakeable sound of a C-130 and walked out to see the thing maybe a few hundred feet up flying over. I want to say that the plane had a dark gray paint scheme.

Now, I have seen lots of C-130s, but this one had a feature I had never seen before. On the vertical stabilizer above the horizontal stabilizers, there was a box unit that appeared like something you would see on a box kite. It had a look almost like world war 2 bomb tail units - very square but with rounded edges at the corners. The box appeared to be equally split on both sides of the vertical stabilizer.

Any ideas?

2

I’m guessing some kind of aerodynamic testbed, but I don’t know why they’d use a C-130.

3

Perhaps it was a variant of the EC-130

Reference:

4

Maybe a NASA plane?

They do aeronautics research.

5

Nailed it in 1. Having previously lived near Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, I would have said no way to EC-130, but that photo is dead on.

Thanks!

6

Now that the question’s answered, here’s my favorite Herc. 105mm howitzer, baby!: Lockheed AC-130 - Wikipedia