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To: Hulka
Retire the C-5 fleet as they are old, have minimal operational readiness rate and consume huge budget keeping them.

The C-5Bs are being modernized with glass cockpits, new avionics, and new more fuel efficient engines. When complete, they will be C-5Ms.

We need the C-5's cargo capacity for lifting things that the C-17 can't.

There was a time not so long ago when this same argument went on regarding the C-130. "We have all the C-130s we want or need" the Air Force would say. Senator Sam Nunn and Congressman Newt Gingrich, both from the state of Georga (home of the C-130 Lockheed assembly plant,) would put a couple of C-130s into the military budget each year, keeping both the assembly line and the C-130 program alive.

Now we have the C-130J, the Air Force are buying them in droves to replace their older, tired Hercs, and we as taxpayers didn't have to go through a great big decade long drawn out competiton to design a brand new replacement for the C-130 that would end up costing ten times as much as the current aircraft.

The C-17 program also needs to be kept alive with a trickle of purchases. If Boeing gets foreign orders, then we don't need to buy any. If they don't, then we can order a couple each year as we retire the older C-5As that aren't being modernized.

13 posted on 07/14/2010 4:29:42 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Yo-Yo
And how many C-5’s will have the glass cockpit?

Not many.

And its MR rate remains very low, well below the C-17.

Speak with the lifters, speak with the aircrew, speak with AQP, A-5 and A-8 staffers (the guys that flew the jets and now work requirements and funding ), and they will tell you, time to retire the C-5’s.

19 posted on 07/14/2010 9:38:23 AM PDT by Hulka
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To: Yo-Yo

Wasn’t mean to be short, just have to leave. . . .


20 posted on 07/14/2010 9:39:23 AM PDT by Hulka
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