Last EC-130H Makes Its Final Flight Ahead of Retirement

The last EC-130H Compass Call in the Air Force’s active inventory made its final flight Sept. 2, as the service prepares to retire the venerable electronic warfare aircraft and pivot to the new EA-37B.

A spokesperson for the 55th Wing confirmed the event, often called a “fini flight,” to Air & Space Forces Magazine. A formal retirement ceremony for the aircraft will take place Sept. 18 at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., where the last flight also took place.

Aviation photographer Steven Fortson snapped images of the final flight, including photos of an EA-37 in the air at the same time.

The end has been a long time coming for the EC-130H—the Air Force first announced plans to retire the EC-130 in 2014 and finally awarded a contract to what was then L3 Technologies to move critical mission systems from the aircraft to new business jets in 2017. The first of the Compass Calls retired in 2021, and the Air Force has slowly culled the 14-aircraft in the years since.

At the same time, the aircraft and its crews have stayed extremely busy given the demand for electronic warfare capabilities. First converted from the workhorse C-130 Hercules in the early 1980s, the type can target, block, and jam enemy communications, radar, or navigation signals.

Aircraft spotters noted one landing in the Caribbean last December, days before Operation Absolute Resolve, the high-stakes raid on Caracas, Venezuela, to snatch and grab Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. And U.S. Central Command confirmed early this year it used the EC-130H in the early days of Operation Epic Fury, the air campaign against Iran.

Indeed, the EC-130 has been a fixture in operations for more than 35 years. It saw its combat debut during Operations Just Cause in Panama in 1989, then flew in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999, and throughout the Global War on Terror over Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria during the 2000s.

Now, much of its mission is transferring to the EA-37B, a modified Gulfstream 550 that will include about 70 percent of the EC-130’s EW systems unchanged. The EA-37B carries a combat crew of nine people, down from 13 on the EC-130H.

The first EA-37 arrived at Davis-Monthan in August 2024, and the jets deployed to support Operation Epic Fury in late March, making their combat debut before the EA-37 had even been formally declared operational. More deployed to the United Kingdom in July, as hostilities with Iran persisted.

Right now, the Air Force has only five EA-37s of the 10 aircraft it has ordered. But the service has plans to expand the fleet to 22 airframes with procurement continuing through 2031. Officials say the expanded fleet—even bigger than the original EC-130H fleet—is necessary given the importance of electronic warfare in modern combat and the demand from combatant commanders.

Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon contributed to this report.