The Lockheed Martin C5 - what a beast

[rfuerst911sc]

Came across this article and thought I would share . I had the pleasure of performing production control on the C5 retrofit program at the Georgia facility . I never new its actual capacity until I read this article .

She is a beautiful beast at lest that's my biased opinion . A C130 parked next to a C5 looks like a toy ! And a C130 isn't tiny by any means . I am proud of serving in a support role on the F22/F35/C5 and C130 . I don't miss the hectic production pace but I do miss seeing the birds on a daily basis.

https://weartv.com/news/local/air-forces-largest-cargo-plane-arrives-at-nas-pensacola-for-historic-pickup

[ErVikingo]

Thanks for taking care of our birds!

[masraum]

hell of a thing...

I've ridden in a C130 from a base near Tokyo to the northern most tip of the main island. No sound deadening, no insulation/heat to speak of, and sitting facing the rear of the plane. I was a kid so it was fun.
I've only seen C5s at air shows including JATO style take offs.

[70SATMan]

What a great photo!

It took me three attempts on C130s to get from Clark AFB to Diego Garcia back in ‘87. First flight was close to 2 hrs out when the plane lost its Nav system and we had to turn back. Second attempt we were on the runway when an engine caught fire. Never got off the ground luckily. Third time was the charm.

I remember 8hrs of torture in those jump seats, boxed lunch and sweat.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 70SATMan

What a great photo!

It took me three attempts on C130s to get from Clark AFB to Diego Garcia back in ‘87. First flight was close to 2 hrs out when the plane lost its Nav system and we had to turn back. Second attempt we were on the runway when an engine caught fire. Never got off the ground luckily. Third time was the charm.

I remember 8hrs of torture in those jump seats, boxed lunch and sweat.

Holy carp! 8 hrs! Yeah, I think our flight was ~2hrs. Diego Garcia was one of the places that my dad could have been stationed, but he gave it a miss.

[Seahawk]

Ok, Quick Sea Story.

When I was at the Sikorsky Factory as the lead Government pilot, we started delivery of UH-60L's to Germany.

We'd fly them from Bridgeport to then Stewart AFB and load them into a C-5, fly to Germany and do the acceptance inspections with the Army.

The Army W-5 that worked for me was incredible, as solid as can be.

I did the third delivery since the W-5 was on another delivery flight in CONUS.

I think we did four UH's at a time.

The flight deck of a C-5 is really something: High off the ground, huge, with all the amenities, including bunk rooms and a Starbucks.

I have 30 minutes of wheel time on a C-5...or seat time: I didn't touch a thing

What a machine.

[Scott Douglas]

I remember seeing a C-5 take off from Los Alamitos once when visiting at my late in-law's who lived in Rossmoor. I'd gone to pickup a pizza from the shopping center that was right at the end of the runway.
Unreal seeing a plane THAT big going THAT slowly and still staying in the air, probably less than 300 feet over head. Then it banked left and went out towards the ocean over the Navel Weapons Station.
Loud too, as they really don't care about that sort of thing on military planes.

[Danimal16]

This was one of my projects, Chuck Zimmerman was the SME that made this happen.

https://www.militarynews.com/norfolk-navy-flagship/news/top_stories/seabees-expeditionary-rock-crusher-recycles-war-debris-rubble/article_c58e6a5a-86c4-5c39-b59a-1e43089de544.html

The unit listed below is nearly identical with the exception of unique NCF and Expeditionary Navy Requirements.

https://eaglecrusher.com/1200-25-cc/

[rfuerst911sc]

Originally Posted by ErVikingo

Thanks for taking care of our birds!

Hey thank you . My last 10 years of my Lockheed Martin career were in aero division . The Marietta facility is an OLD facility but serves a very valuable purpose .

[70SATMan]

Originally Posted by masraum

Holy carp! 8 hrs! Yeah, I think our flight was ~2hrs. Diego Garcia was one of the places that my dad could have been stationed, but he gave it a miss.

Ok, one of my salties. That was a hell of a trip in total. It was my first WestPac and they flew me back to Coronado from Pearl for an additional school. After the school finished, it was all about getting back out to the Enterprise which by that time was on station.

San Diego back to Pearl, out the Philippines, then to Diego Garcia. We weren’t allowed to leave the terminal at Clark and it’s not like there’s multiple flights to DG daily. With the aircraft issues, it caused me to essentially live at the terminal for two days eating box meals brought in.

Spent two weeks TAD in DG living in two man hootches. By the way that’s double the time needed to see the island, LOL. I helped build a sand volleyball court that was about 50ft from the beach. You can guess where we got the sand.

Boarded the USS Hector in DG which was a repair ship. Was told at the time that she was the oldest ship in the entire fleet. Believable because she was definitely old school. Spent a week plus TAD in the Comm shop till we sailed within vicinity of the task force. While on the Hector, I was running laps on the upper outdoor deck while a Frigate was coming alongside for repairs. The Collision Alarm sounded and I grabbed the nearest pipe inboard just before the Frigate came into us. Wasn’t too bad but, definitely swapped some paint! If ya gotta hit another ship, a full repair ship is your best choice.

Once we were in the vicinity of the E we took a flat bottom garbage scow from the Hector to the E with a boarding ladder down. It was maybe 1000-1500 yards and pretty calm seas overall but, you know flat bottom and a couple of the guys were puking,, Not me I can say with some pride,,, I loved big seas.

Was never so happy to get back to the ship as that trip,,,

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

The Army W-5 that worked for me was incredible, as solid as can be.

CWO or Master Chief are guys who command respect. Every one I ever saw in real life did anyway.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

I do miss seeing the birds on a daily basis.

That would have been cool! I worked in aerospace for 5 years and never got near a whole military aircraft (outside the Air Force Museum- I was there for lunch and a look-around 2 or 3 days a week). There was an airman attached to our lab who worked for the C-5 SPO, but was appropriately quiet about just what he was working on.

[HobieMarty]

When we lived in Valparaiso, Florida, our house was in the flight pattern for one of the runways for Eglin AFB. I was 10 when we moved there and quickly learned to identify many aircraft. Every now and then, a C5A Galaxy would fly over. It made a loud whine sound and was absolutely huge. It always looked like it was barely moving, and I always wondered how the heck it was staying in the air???

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[70SATMan]

Originally Posted by Tobra

CWO or Master Chief are guys who command respect. Every one I ever saw in real life did anyway.

One of my buddies was a loadmaster on C141s (IIRC). Man he has some stories.

[rfuerst911sc]

^^^ The size is just incredible , but then load 281,000 lbs in her and she can still take off ! Just an amazing aircraft . There are many miles of cables/tubing/hoses in her . The parts list just for retrofit is mind blowing .

[A930Rocket]

The C5 must be a heck of an airplane. I see the C17 fly out of Charleston and they look huge and slow.

[sc_rufctr]

(more than 30 years ago) I spent a lot of time traveling on the C130. Cold and noisy... The toilet arrangement was interesting.

The C5 was a rare sight at the time. They dwarf remote airbases in Aus.

[Mike Andrew]

I spent 27 years of my aero career working for a company that supplied a bunch of components to Uncle Lockheed. We actuated all of the flight control surfaces on the !30 as well as the landing gear - all ball screws, no hydraulics. Later got into the cargo handling end of the aircraft - roller trays, lockboxes for auto release of pallets, ADS arm holding the ass end open and troop seat beams to hold those fancy seats. Missed a chance to fly a Lake Michigan loop on one as it conflicted with Road America. Those who went were quite impressed. plus, it was a work day excursion.

We also produced a few C-5 items including the locks for the nose of the aircraft.

Had meetings at Marietta and got to do a tour(F22 area excluded) and it was very impressive. There was a C5 outside on the tarmac for service and I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the thing. Behemoth!

[rfuerst911sc]

Fun fact- in the late 60's Lockheed was considering making a commercial version of the C5 . It was going to be called the L-500 and was going to be fitted to carry 1000 passengers !

But the Boeing 747 had much lower production and maintenance costs so Lockheed scrubbed the idea . I can only imagine how luxurious Lockheed could have made that aircraft .

[GH85Carrera]

Long ago we had a great air show here in Oklahoma City. The USAF brought in a C-5 and opened it for a tour. They also brought in a SR-71, and the Thunderbirds.

The Soviet Union sent over their gigantic Antonov An-225 Mriya. It was cool to tour all of them. One guy in the line asked the Air Force pilot whe the US does not have something like the Antonov. He replied, they have just one of those, and we have over 100 C-5s, and lots of C-130s.

It was a wonderful air show.