were designed with paratroopers in mind. By that, I mean they were designed for someone wearing a parachute on his back. If you don't have a chute, those seats are damned uncomfortable because you're leaning too far backwards with poor back support.

I made 3 jumps out of a C-130 in my paratrooper days. We went out of the side doors. You had to make a strong exit so the prop blast wouldn't blow you back against the side of the fuselage. We called that "eating rivets." My last 130 jump was out of an old Oklahoma ANG C-130A, the only one I ever saw with 3 bladed propellors. That was the CF jump where damned near everything that could go wrong did, including my having a damaged chute, landing off the DZ due to strong winds (at least I didn't land in a tree like most of the men on my plane - I landed in a briar patch), a mid-air between me and another jumper, and a lot of injuries, 1 fatal, followed by being tear gassed (full riot strength CS) by someone deciding to have some fun at our expense, followed by an all night field exercise. That was a bad night. A bad time was had by all.

I also made a few non-jump C-130 flights. It got me where I was going, and that's about the best thing I can say about the trips. At least when I was jumping, I always had two chutes. There's no such thing as a 'perfectly good' military airplane (especially back in the 1970s). There were more than a few that I was happy to leave in flight, and I love airplanes.