NOVEMBER 17, 2025 – The C-130 Hercules is known for performing tactical airlift missions, capable of short-take offs from dirt strips and airdropping troops and equipment. Thanks to four aircraft commanders in the late 1950s, the Hercules also shined as part of an aerial demonstration team that remembers as the Four Horsemen.
Among these pilots, retired Lt. Col. James F. Akin, the last surviving member of the Four Horsemen, passed away on Sept. 9, 2025, at the age of 100, officially marking an end to this legendary chapter in C-130 history.
Akin served in the Army Air Corps and Air Force from 1944 to 1967. He was a command pilot with more than 7,000 total flight hours including in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War where he was shot down twice after completing a low-level resupply and required medical evacuation from the theater.
Among his list of achievements, Akin was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and the Air Medal.
“Capt. Akin was flying C-130 flights as both a Four Horseman demonstration pilot and supporting airlift missions to Europe,” said Col. Elizabeth Mathias, USAFA Department of English and Fine Arts professor, and Akin’s granddaughter. “In 1960, my grandfather received a coin from President Eisenhower.”
She explained how he conducted an emergency airlift of an aircraft engine from Sewart Air Force Base, Tennessee, to Evreux, France, in 13 hours. While there, the president met with the support crews in France to thank them for their efforts. It was then he recognized Akin, who worked on his security detail a couple years prior, and coined him.
Despite these accolades, Mathias said that what Akin loved most was performing as a Four Horseman pilot with the plane he loved: the C-130.
The first generation of the mighty Hercules, the C-130A, was introduced to the service in 1957. A shipment was sent to Campbell Army Airfield in Kentucky for an exercise, but due to severe weather, the exercise was cancelled.
However, four aircraft commanders — Captains Jim Akin, Gene Chaney, Bill Hatfield and David Moore — didn’t want to lose out on a flight opportunity in their new Herks. These four pilots, from the 774th Troop Carrier Squadron aka “The Green Weasels”, came up with the idea to practice close proximity flying.
The four demonstrated the aircraft’s short take-off ability in diamond formation and made several low-altitude passes over the base, closing the distance between each other as close as ten feet.
With approval from Tactical Air Command and some practice in their down time, the four pilots and their crews perfected a routine they performed for the 314th Troop Carrier Wing at Sewart AFB. They broke away from a parade of 36 Hercules aircraft and flew in their diamond formation at low altitude over the airfield before finishing with a bomb-burst breakaway.
Soon after this initial performance, they gained recognition from the Air Force as an official aerial demonstration team.
The team originally called themselves the “Thunder Weasels,” a combination of the “Thunderbirds” and the weasel from their squadron patch but later changed their name to the “Four Horsemen” in honor of the 1924 University of Notre Dame football team.
Over the course of the next three years, the Four Horsemen performed dozens of aerial shows throughout the United States and even some performances in Europe. They’d perfected their routine to a 20-minute demonstration of intricate maneuvers and tight formations performed at an altitude of 500 to 1,000 feet, with their grand finale—the iconic bomb-burst breakaway that would later be called the “Horseman Burst.”
The Four Horsemen disbanded in 1960, after three of the Four Horsemen received orders overseas and the fourth retired from the service. In 2010, Akin and Hatfield visited Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, as part of the 815th Airlift Squadron reunion and flew together one last time in the C-130J Super Hercules simulators.
After his retirement from the Air Force, Akin continued flying and telling stories about his adventures. In July 2024, at the age of 99, he completed his first ever parachute jump tandem in honor of the thousands of airborne infantries he airdropped in his career.
“I always enjoyed that kind of stuff,” Akin had shared with Mathias before he passed. “We’d go across the South China Sea, I’d look around, the copilot is asleep, the engineer is asleep, the navigator’s asleep, so one guy’s gotta stay awake. You’re at 25,000 feet, you just turn the lights down low, in the wee hours of the morning and you’re sitting there with this big full moon, it’s just heaven.”
The C-130 has evolved throughout the years, but history will never forget the impact of the Four Horsemen. Their legacy that lives on as a part of the C-130’s proud heritage.
Story by Senior Airman Isabella Ortega
19th Airlift Wing