Operation Credible Sport

Operation Credible Sport was terminated when on 2 November, the Iranian parliament accepted an Algerian plan for release of the hostages, followed two days later by Ronald Reagan's election as the U.S.

The first mission failed due to equipment and coordination problems, culminating in the crash of an RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter into a parked C-130 Hercules in the Iranian desert, killing eight servicemen.

Under the name "Honey Badger", the JTD conducted a series of large-scale joint-force exercises and projects to develop and validate a variety of capabilities that would be available to OSD when mission requirements were identified.

The Credible Sport project, a joint undertaking of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and Lockheed-Georgia, was created within Honey Badger to develop a reliable extraction capability.

[2] The Credible Sport concept called for a modified C-130 Hercules cargo plane to land in the Amjadien Stadium across the street from the U.S. Embassy and airlift out Delta Force soldiers and the rescued hostages.

(A U.S. Marine Corps KC-130 on loan to the U.S. Navy had been previously landed on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal (CVA-59) in November 1963 as part of a Naval Air Systems Command demonstration.

The contract called for two to be modified to the proposed XFC-130H configuration within 90 days, and the third to be used as a test bed for various rocket packages blistered onto the forward and aft fuselage, which theoretically enabled the aircraft to land and take off within the sports arena's confines.

)[4] After Lockheed was requested on 27 June 1980 to begin preliminary engineering studies on an STOL Hercules, the use of JATO units was explored, since these had previously been used to power takeoffs.

The U.S. Navy's Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake organization was then brought into the project to provide expertise on existing rocket motor power.

Phase I was conducted between 24 August – 11 November 1981, to test minor modifications to improve aerodynamics, satisfy Combat Talon II prototype requirements on STOL performance, handling characteristics, and avionics, and to establish safety margins.