At a mere 24 years of age and weighing 80,000 pounds, his name comes hardly as a surprise.

But “Fat Albert” is no slouch.

From a burbling standstill at the end of the runway at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, Captain Katie Higgins engages the four propeller engines, and the bulbous, yellow and blue C-130 Hercules affectionately known as “Fat Albert” roars skyward.

“This is not a commercial airline,” said Blue Angels Logistics Specialist Ben Vinas while briefing a gaggle of reporters signed up to see the Marine Corps transport plane in action. “Make sure your seat belts are super-tight.”

Although neither as sleek nor as fast as the seven F-18 Hornets that stand on the flight line nearby, “Fat Albert” is the laboring pack mule on which much of the Navy’s Blue Angels show depends, ferrying people, supplies and tools between the 30-plus shows put on by the fighter pilots each year, and spending up to 400 hours in the air annually.

While the Blue Angels will wow the tens of thousands who attend this weekend’s Great State of Maine Air Show, it is Fat Albert and its crew that do the heavy lifting – literally.

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“You’d be amazed – it’s packed to the gills with equipment and crew,” said Herb Gillen, the air show’s promoter. “They live outta that thing.”

For a fleeting 15 minutes, Higgins and her crew of Marines take the airplane through its paces.

Shortly after the wheels leave the runway, Higgins pulls back on the flight yoke and the plane climbs steadily, the effects of gravity multiplying, before she pitches the massive plane into a momentary dive.

Inside the cargo hold, legs, arms, lanyards, equipment – anything not tied down or seat-belted in – float toward the heavens.

“It is a very dynamic flight,” Vinas said, smiling like a man who knows something everyone else does not.

Moments before take-off, crew hand out small, manila envelopes, each containing a motion sickness bag. Both Vinas and the envelope’s instructions take pity on the unsuspecting civilians who hold them.

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“Don’t be embarrassed by this precaution,” the envelope reads. “Even veteran travelers are subject to occasional motion sickness.”

(Exactly one passenger, a television cameraman, avails himself of the discrete opaque plastic bag inside.)

These demonstration flights are only a fraction of the workload that Albert performs, however.

Most of the time Fat Albert functions like a jumbo-sized taxi.

Up to 40 crew members sit side by side like kernels of corn lining the cargo hold, their knees resting less than a foot from the six pallets of equipment, tools and supplies that make the Angels tick, Vinas said.

The Angels are based out of Pensacola, Florida, but most of their equipment comes with them.

Helping to maintain the aircraft is Gunnery Sgt. Josh Samuels, a flight engineer from Nashville, Tennessee, who is in the first year of his three-year stint with the Angels.

From washing the aircraft to changing a tire, Samuels looks after Albert and Albert alone. His role with the Angels means he can dispense with the occasional desk duty that someone of his rank would have to endure had he been stationed with another unit.

“I enjoy that I get to fly it and I get to maintain it,” he said.


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