Sunset for C-5As?
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Posted on 02/18/2008 1:49:22 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
Re-engining of the US Air Force's oldest Lockheed C-5 Galaxy strategic airlifters has been cancelled by the US Department of Defense after a steep increase in the project cost of the programme.
The USAF's 62 C-5As will no longer be modernised under the reliability enhancement and re-engining programme (RERP), which replaces the TF39 engines with General Electric CF6-80C2s and upgrades other systems.
Lockheed will still re-engine 47 newer C-5Bs and two C-5Cs operated for NASA. Including three that have already undergone avionics upgrades and re-engining to become C-5M test aircraft, this will give the USAF a total of 52 modernised Galaxys.
Cancelling work on the older C-5s will cut the estimated cost of the RERP from $17.5 billion to $7.7 billion, saving $9.8 billion. The projected cost when the 115-aircraft programme started in November 2001 was $11.1 billion.
The US Air Force has been lobbying Congress to permit it to retire the C-5As, which is prohibited by legislation, so that it can buy more Boeing C-17 airlifters. The USAF has not requested any C-17s in its fiscal year 2009 budget, but Congress is expected to add aircraft.
Flight testing of the re-engined C-5B began in June 2006. Designated the F138-100 by the military, the commercial CF6-80C2 turbofan increases the Galaxy's payload and range, reduces its take-off distance and increases its climb rate.
Sunset for C-5As?
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About time, too.
We’d better get a handle on these super-expensive, but badly needed aircraft upgrade programs or else our warfighters will be in a world of hurt across the board. My sense is that we have to control the appetites of the users for all the bells and whistles and embark on a DoD-wide program of sensible, but minimal, upgrades. We can’t afford everything.
TC
Airlift isn’t sexy, but vital. These babies are getting long in the tooth, but they have done a job!
Just another stake to the heart of GE. GE screwed up big-time in the 1990s by getting into finance and insurance, two industries it was clueless about and had no business getting into, and which ended up dragging GE down (for instance, after the stock split in 2000 GE shares were at, I think, $60; then, in the blink of an eye the price plummeted to just over $20. I was working for a GE company then, and my 401K that consisted of GE stock lost 2/3 of its value almost overnight. It never recovered).
They're still going to upgrade the avionics so the C-5A's will have glass cockpits, but they won't put new engines in the C-5A's except for the one that was already reengined as the test bed for reengining the C-5A fleet. The two C-5C's that are mostly used to transport satellites from the factory to launch sites will be reengined even though they started out as C-5A's. They were rebuilt and actually put though the C-5B production line to get various skin and other upgrades.
The C-5A fleet will still be flying for another decade or two, because with all the C-5B's being reengined and 14 of the earliest C-5A's being retired, and the replacement of the original avionics, there's now plenty of spare parts. I wouldn't be surprised if a blended wing body (BWB) C-5 replacement becomes a high priority in a decade or so. Such a plane could also be built in a civilian version that could kill the Airbus A380 with a much lower CASM.
It's Lockheed that screwed up. GE isn't doing too badly in aerospace. They are one of two engine suppliers for the 787, and they have a monopoly on the high gross weight versions of the 777 (300ER and 200LR) that make up the lion's share of new 777 orders. They are also partners with Pratt & Whitney for the GP-7200 engines developed for the A380. They will be on all of Emirates A380's, and Emirates has the largest order for A380's.
I haven’t compared the thrust of the PW2000 on the C-17’s to the GE retrofit, but from a logistical spare parts standpoint even if it needed new nacelles I would have went that route. No we have Old GE’s the New GE’s and Pratt’s to keep spares in house, manuals, training, etc., incredibly stupid IMHO.....
The original TF-39 engines were built by GE and were ancestors of the GE CF6 engines used on the 747, 767, A300, and A330. The Pentagon wants to derate the GE CF5-80 engines to about 50,000 pounds in order to maximize the on wing time. This still allows for an increase in thrust to improve runway and climb performance. I'm not sure if the wings are strong enough for the engines to be operated at 60,000+ pounds.
bttt
Also there has been talk of re-engine-ing the old B-52's with PW2000's.
They could have done two airframes to one new engine, that is already in the fleet.
I am too logical, I would never survive in the beltway, this makes to much sense.....
more pix pls.
There has been talk of re-engine-ing the B-52’s since the 1970’s. I’m still waiting on that one.
Early 90's at Pratt, talked about a lot, that is now 15+ years ago....
They want to upgrade the C-5B not just replace the engines with ones of equal power. The biggest mistake Lockheed made was in not building the C-5B with the same CF6-50C2 turbofans used in the KC-10. The C-5B fleet was built about the same time as the KC-10, and the TF-33 was already an obsolete design when it was put back into production for the C-5B. Had they done that, the engines from the C-5B fleet could have been used to reengine the best remaining C-5A's while the C-5B's could have been still reengined with the CF6-80 used on the 747-400. The Cf6-50 would have given the C-5 fleet better performance and commonality with the KC-10 fleet with the ability to have common spares. GE engines were probably a better match for the C-5, because the TF-39 was the ancestor of the CF6, and probably has compatibility with other systems on the C-5.
January 16, 2008
AFA members and Congressional Staffers, many of you have commented favorably on the “elevator speech numbers” I sent you.
It’s January ... so here are some revealing data on the “State of the Air Force.”
Fighter Aircraft - average age: 20 years; average flight hours 5400+
Bomber Aircraft - average age: 32 years; average flight hours 11,400+
Tanker aircraft - average age: 44 years; average flight hours 18,900+
C2 Fleet - average age: 22 years old; average flight hours 32,000
ISR Fleet (excluding UAV) - average age: 30 years old; average flight hours 18,000
Key Groundings/Restrictions
F-15A-D - 163 of 441 are grounded for structural issues
B-52 - 6 are grounded - past due PDM grounding date - authorized a one-time flight to the bone-yard.
EC-130 - 2 of 14 are grounded due to center wing box cracks
C-130E - 3 are grounded and 13 are restricted due to Service life and wing cracks
KC-135Es - 26 of 86 are grounded due to engine strut corrosion.
AC-130U - 4 of 17 are restricted due to lack of 30MM weapons
B-2 - entire fleet is restricted due to windshield bolt hole cracks
C-5s - 39 of 108 are restricted due to crown skin restrictions (weight limiting)
Additionally:
219 of 223 F-15Es have training restrictions due to vertical stab structural issues
Majority of Block 25/30/32, block 40/42, and block 50/52 F-16s need structural modifications
All 356 A-10s will need new wings and new aircraft skin - many have landing gear issues ... and all need new engines.
C-130Hs have Center Wing Box issues
C-32As have bulkhead structural issues.
Looking across the FYDP - between 2008-2013 - the Air Force will divest itself of 749 aircraft and procure only 698 aircraft (260 of which are UAVs).
To give you the idea of the scale of all of this:
When the AF grounded its 600+ F-15 fleet, it grounded more aircraft than the entire F/A Navy. The F-15s it presently has grounded equate to a bit more than 3 aircraft carriers of aircraft.
The 356 A-10s that need renovations equates to more aircraft than the fixed wing USMC
The Air Force has about 5800 aircraft ... and presently about one-third are either grounded or restricted in one way or another
The central important part of this data is that this is not a third-world Air Force ... And the question we should ask ourselves, why don’t we fund it to ensure our children and grandchildren are safe and secure?
2nd Subject -
Chief of Staff White Paper - Gen Moseley published an exceptional White Paper ... which lays out the strategic foundations for the Air Force of the future. If you haven’t seen it, you can find it on the AFA website: http://dailyreport.afa.org/NR/rdonlyres/868196FC-AABB-4230-84EA-F5358B0C4B34/0/CSAF_white_paper.pdf
My favorite quotes in it are:
“No modern war has been won without air superiority. No future war will be won without air, space and cyberspace superiority.” Page 2.
“With the oldest inventory in history, battered by 17 years of continuous combat, the Air Force’s ability to fulfill its missions is already being tested.” Page 2
“... our reliance on assured access to space will increase exponentially.” Page 8
“The Air Force is smaller in December 2007 than it was in December 1941.” Page 10
For your consideration.
Mike
Michael M. Dunn, Lt Gen (Ret)
AFA President/CEO
thats good but what about something that shows its immense scale.
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