A month earlier, the wing's Dakotas had flown supply and observation flights in connection with the British atomic test on Montebello in Western Australia. No. 36 Squadron disbanded at Richmond on 9 March 1953, re-forming the next day from No. 30 Transport Unit at Iwakuni, Japan. Here it was part of No. 91 (Composite) Wing, which controlled the RAAF's units during the Korean War and its immediate aftermath. The squadron returned to Australia and the aegis of No. 86 Wing two years later, when No. 91 Wing disbanded. In 1954, No. 86 Wing relocated to Canberra to help satisfy the Federal government's VIP transport needs. It returned to Richmond four years later, leaving behind its VIP contingent, No. 34 Flight, which in July 1959 was re-formed as No. 34 Squadron and left the control of No. 86 Wing to become an independent unit directly administered by Home Command and tasked by RAAF Canberra. Having earlier augmented its complement of Dakotas with Convair 440 Metropolitans, in December 1958 the wing began operating Lockheed C-130 Hercules medium transports, when No. 36 Squadron took delivery of the first of twelve C-130As. They remained in service for twenty years, clocking up 147,000 accident-free flying hours. The official history of the post-war Air Force described the Hercules as "probably the biggest step-up in aircraft capabilities" the RAAF ever received, considering it roughly four times as effective as the Dakota, taking into account the improvements in payload, range, and speed. When No. 78 (Fighter) Wing and its two CAC Sabre squadrons deployed to RAAF Base Butterworth between October 1958 and February 1959, seven Dakotas were required to ferry the staff and equipment of No. 3 Squadron from Australia to Malaya, compared to two Hercules for No. 77 Squadron. In 1962, Air Movements and Training Flight (AMTF), previously under No. 38 Squadron and responsible for developing and imparting new techniques in aerial transport, came directly under the control of No. 86 Wing headquarters. That December, the Hercules carried troops into a combat zone for the first time, when one of No. 36 Squadron's C-130s joined a Commonwealth airlift from Singapore to Borneo at the beginning of the Konfrontasi between Indonesia and Malaysia; similar missions were undertaken for another five years. No. 38 Squadron received the RAAF's first de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou tactical transports in April 1964, replacing its Dakotas. The first six Caribous were despatched that