[Paleo Conservative]

Below are links to other recent articles about the modernization of the C-5 fleet. I didn't want to post separate threads for them.

http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=119136&src=0

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/local/states/georgia/counties/houston_peach/13056699.htm

Here's a link to the GlobalSecurity.com webpage about the C-5 RERP.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/c-5-serv.htm

Below is a link to a thread with lots of great pictures of the first C-5M. I don't know about the copyright status of them so I'm not posting the images on this thread.

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/military/read.main/38635/

[Paleo Conservative]

If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.

[Heatseeker]

I live near Dover AFB and used to be right under their flight pattern, which seems to be changed as I no longer hear the big jets on a regular basis..

Great article, though I had to chuckle at the guy describing the reengined C-5's as "race cars". ;)

[Lancer_N3502A]

Bottom line...she's BIG and she's BAD!

[SkyPilot]

Thnaks for the link.

The C-5 has been a great airplane, but it has been plagued by the TF-39 engine, lousy thrust reversers, and an overall mission reliability that hovered in the mid 60% to maybe 70% range, while the C-141 and C-130 were usually 85% or better. Aircraft like the C-17 average around 94% mission reliability.

This upgrade is a good decision. It would cost hundreds of billions to manufacture over 100 C-5s from scratch today, and with a "small" investment, we will have that airlift capability for many years to come. You just don't send 60 airframes like the C-5 to the bone yard. It would be akin to throwing away 60 Stradivarius violins worth millions because their strings are broken.

Now that this nation is finally getting more C-17s, the addition of a much improved C-5 will give our nation the outsize and oversized cargo capability we need. In a crisis like Katrina, everyone wants airlift---NOW! Unless we have these airframes on hand, the media, Congress, and critics can go to the microphones all they want and bitch. It was aircraft like the C-5 and C-17 that delivered the huge pumps from Germany and the Netherlands that started pumping out massive quantities of water in the first days of the crisis. If we didn't have these aircraft, then no pumps. Does the lame media and the sheeple get that?

It was C-5s and C-17s that rescued elderly people by the hundreds from nursing homes in Beaumont TX and Lake Charles LA, while hurricane Rita was literally minutes from making landfall. The last aircraft took off from Lake Charles just at the hurricane approached. This news release does not even begin to mention the danger--the winds were out of limits and the aircraft barely made it out. Those people would have died without these 9-11 emergency aircraft on alert.

[mad_as_he$$]

Interesting -at one point the C-5 took 50 man hours of maintenance for every hour in the air. I have been told that the C-17 takes about 10. Does this retrofit remove a lot of the heavy maintenance items?

[Dilbert56]

Off topic but related: Does anyone know if we're re-engining the B-52s? Supposedly 4 turbofans replace the 8 turbojets with all the benefits of modernization. Last thing I heard was the numbers flipped when you factored in the elimination of in-flight refuelings at $165K each.

[Jackknife]

Three C-5s - two "B" models and one "A" - are undergoing RERP at Lockheed's Marietta plant near Atlanta. One aircraft is 80 percent complete. Another is about 40 percent done. Work on the third aircraft, a C-5A, began in September.

I live about a five minute drive from the tarmac in Marietta, right in the flightline. Having lived in this area since I was born (40 years), I have grown up watching these beautiful giants fly over. I saw one of these 3 C-5's just a couple of days ago on a test flight. A few times, they have come right over the house so low that I could see the wings flexing!

What a bird!!

[VOA]

bump