Joseph Earl Dabney

Hardcover, 496 pages
Fully illustrated with photographs
ISBN: 0-914875-40-X
$29.95

Herk: Hero of the Skies is the story of the C-130 Hercules aircraft and its involvement in military, scientific, and humanitarian missions around the world. Dabney takes the reader through the turboprop’s development by Lockheed Martin and the United States Air Force and recounts many of its heroic deeds, tracking its history from the initial A-model through the current C-130J.

Starting out primarily as a tactical military airlifter delivering troops and supplies into and out of short strips of sand, grass, and snow, the C-130 quickly became one of the most effective ambassadors of good will. First-hand accounts chronicle the C-130’s historic role as a hefty "flying pickup," hauling relief goods to disaster areas around the world, hunting hurricanes, fighting forest fires, and refueling airborne helicopters. The aircraft also revolutionized the scientific exploration of Antarctica (on one-ton skis), and helped develop oil fields in Alaska, Peru, and Mexico.

Joseph Earl Dabney

Joseph E. Dabney is a native of Kershaw, South Carolina, a graduate of Berry College, and a veteran of the Korean War. Currently an author and public speaker, Mr. Dabney is retired from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Marietta, Georgia, where he served as a public relations representative from 1965 to 1989. Prior to that, he was a reporter for fifteen years and an editor with several Southern newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal and the Morning News of Florence, South Carolina.

Mr. Dabney’s revised edition of Herk: Hero of the Skies is a reflection of his continuing love affair with the Hercules transport. As part of his Hercules experience, he accompanied C-130 and L-100 crews on numerous missions to sites in the United States and across South America, Canada, Greenland, Alaska, Great Britain, India, and the Middle East.

Mr. Dabney’s versatility as a writer is apparent from the success of each of his books. Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking, a 500-page ode to Southern mountain foodways, won the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook of the Year Award in 1999. Mountains Spirits and More Mountain Spirits, also published by Bright Mountain Books, chronicle corn whiskey from King James’ Plantation to America’s Appalachians.

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