It's not a sight you see often at the Estevan Regional Airport.

A military C-130 Hercules landed at the airport earlier this week as part of a training routine.

"They're based out of Winnipeg and they do search and rescue training across Canada," said Estevan Regional Airport Manager Richard Reetz. "The purpose of their visit to Estevan is we have a fabulous facility here in Estevan and they make use of it by doing some of their search and rescue training here."

"They've been coming about once a month or once every other month. And they do live parachute drops, so they're dropping equipment near the airport here and then they make a few passes and they determine what the winds look like. After that then they actually get their jumpers out of the plane and they parachute in and they're simulating that they're finding a crash or they're coming for a search and rescue whether it's aircraft or other means," he said.

Reetz added that there are no concerns with the plane landing on the shorter Estevan runway.

"It's probably the biggest plane that we get on a regular basis here in Estevan, and actually surprisingly the Hercules is a fabulous design," Reetz said. "It's over 50 years old that they've been using the aircraft, but it's such a good design that they have plenty of room to spare here in Estevan. The airport's perfectly matched for the airplane."

"It's definitely a lot of fun to see the airplane and have them participate in the aviation community here in Estevan."