Factors may be on side of C-5As; Air Force may be unable to retire aging aircraft as quickly...

The Macon Telegraph ^ | Mon, Aug. 04, 2003 | Gene Rector

[al baby]

Perspective The Best time and place to see one is at lax on landing at sepulveda blvd at the holding lot for taxis and shuttles you can or used to be able pre 911 to get to the fence and the would pass way less than 100 feet above you from nose to tail would take forever to pass you the down force from the wings would take your breath away

[Severa]

Can go one better than that...at the NAS Oceana air show last year they had one of these fat bastards on static display...you could walk right up into the cargo bay. You should have heard my sons (ages 3 and 6) *L* They loved it.

[Yasotay]

OK .... I am an old timer .... 1980s and 1990s .... I am out of the loop, but the point still stands. The USAF does not have much lift capacity. I bet capacity was even lost in the "exchange" of C-17 for C-141 ...

[XBob]

3 - most war support work is done by Brown and Root, a Halliburton company, which rents/leases the giant Russian Tupolov cargo planes, (biggest plane in the world).

[XBob]

10-"cant we convert these babies into Big Gunships like we do the C130?? That would be cool."

There was a proposal for something similar to just that, about 30 years ago, not long after the c-5 came out, except it entailed putting something like torpedo tubes on the C-5, and putting 100 long range missiles on board, and allowing the C-5 to loiter safely off shore, like our navy ships do, except that they could get there an awful lot faster.

[XBob]

Incredible C-117's is right. No wonder Calfornia is bankrupt, "The C-17 price tag is about $240 million per aircraft."

This is utterly ridiculous, particularly for a relatively small wide body plane, which is essentially a Fat, jet powered c-130.

Did youall discover Gold in California again, or are you just gold digging?

[Wright is right!]

"...so when Taliban or Al Qaeda were spotted outside the range of infantry weapons, they often could not be engaged and most eventually got away. The reason for not having the heavy stuff was insufficient airlift."

More properly, there was no place to set the airlift down safely. No safe airfields. We had the birds.

Michael

[AFreeBird]

and putting 100 long range missiles on board, and allowing the C-5 to loiter safely off shore

I believe they also successfully launched a minuteman missle out the back of one of those. They pushed it out the back, tail end first, and ignited the motors during decent.

[mark502inf]

The reason for not having the heavy stuff was insufficient airlift." More properly, there was no place to set the airlift down safely. No safe airfields. We had the birds.

Both Bagram & Kandahar were safe. Both can handle C-130s & C17s; Bagram can handle any aircraft. The fighting took place way to the east near Pakistan.

Actually, there were two reasons advanced for not sending in arty & more attack helicopters--one was insufficient airlift & the other was that they weren't necessary because fixed wing air support would be available. For the Army & Special Ops guys on the ground, the bottom line was they had insufficient attack helos and no arty for suppression of anti-aircraft fires or for counter-mortar fires. 28 of 36 casualties in the first two days of Anaconda were caused by enemy mortar fire.

Close Air Support was sometimes present, sometimes not; sometimes effective, sometimes not. Just as in Tora Bora a few months earlier, airpower had almost no effect on stoping the movement of dispersed small units in rugged terrain. Going light on the ground meant a lot of Al Qaeda got away to fight another day.