Why not simply stop winding down the ones we have got, and put the withdrawn ones back into service? Or are they beyond repair?
The C130Ks that have been withdrawn from service are beyond returning, but they are all over 40 years old anyway. The real scandal is the state of the C130Js, a little over one quarter of that age but in a pretty shocking condition due to lack of engineering support & spares added to the high number of flying cycles/ hours that they have done in recent ops.
It might have been better to spend some of the cash on engineering backup but as Stoppers pointed out it's probably too late for that now particularly as the aircraft are due for disposal by 2020.....but as the C130Ks have ably demonstrated the requirement for a capable aircraft sometimes pushes it beyond its OSD & if the A400 doesn't achieve its Tac clearances in time....
So the C130J might also be forced to soldier on beyond 2020 having had the bare minimum spent on it for more than the past decade. Meanwhile, when does the shiny new £200 million C17 arrive?