Specials on the range?

[catkins]

After a wet start to the day altered plans of all day visit and walks near Spadeadam, driving from Bewcastle to Wiley Sike mid afternoon was greeted by improving weather and a RAF Chinook doing circuits at the north end of the range. By the time I got to explore the road up to Butterburn Flow, the Chinook completed about an hour on site with a refuel (presumed at Berry Hill) before departure possibly to the south (not spotted heading out of the N or E part of the range).
It was replaced by a RAF Hercules C-130J, possibly SF as it had what looked like the AN/AAQ-24(V) Nemesis directed IR countermeasures (DIRCM) in housings on the rear fuselage, six-bladed propellers but no refuelling probe, which did just over an hour of CM rotations in the north part of the range dropping chaff.

[catkins]

I'll put a couple of images here as the light wasn't brilliant and it may help ID

[David Thompson]

Hercules C4 ZH868

[catkins]

Well, that's a quick ID and thanks for that - the lack of refuelling probe was making me unsure of what this was! And it was too far off even with 566mm equiv lens and half frame crop to make out any numbers! Ta.

[warrior2035]

That was its third day in a row at Spade.

[toom317]

With tanks as well. Haven't seen that on a RAF C4/5 before.