AMP project brings C-5s into modern era

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Timothy Boyer
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  With well-paying jobs harder to come by and a suffering economy, people are finding ways to make things last longer. There may have been a time when people would trade in their aging vehicles for a newer model, but that seems to be happening less and less as people are finding ways to stretch their dollars.

The Air Force is no exception and is finding ways to make equipment last.

Throughout the past seven years, 78 C-5 Galaxy aircraft have been equipped with modernized avionics suites, designed to make the aircraft more reliable and to add years of serviceability to the jet.

The program moved one step closer to completion Tuesday as a 1970 Galaxy, with freshly installed upgrades, took to the air for an acceptance check flight, said Mike White, Lockheed Martin site manager.

"They're getting ready to test flight it today, and if it passes they will return it to the Air Force," White said. "Once it's back in Air Force hands, it's one more jet for the war."

The acceptance check flight crew is specially trained and certified to run an inspection to verify the aircraft is ready to return to service.

"The acceptance inspection includes a very thorough preflight and engine run inspection," said Tech. Sgt. Milan Gonos, 312th Airlift Squadron flight engineer. "They are much more thorough than a typical preflight check."

With such thorough inspections, issues are often identified.

"The problems we find during our inspections are mostly legacy problems," Gonos said.

Legacy problems are ones that do not have to do with the modernization, but have to do with some other aspect of the aircraft, he said.

"The lack of issues we have with the modernization itself is actually quite impressive," said Master Sgt. Ben Clary, 312th AS flight engineer. "They pull out more than 15 miles of wire and replace it with more than 10 miles of wire. You would think with all those connections, computers and wires we would find more issues."

The contractors go in and find legacy problems, then the team at Travis comes in and takes care of them, White said. The teamwork at Travis is amazing.

Once the legacy problems are taken care of, the acceptance check flight crew is able to prepare for flight.

"The aircraft is not airworthy until we fly it and run all the tests to make sure it is airworthy," said Clary, acceptance check flight crew member.

The C-5 Avionics Modernization Program is not the last step in upgrading the Galaxy. The next step is the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program, in which the C-5 engines will be replaced with new CF-6 General Electric engines that are less noisy, have more thrust and provide an increased climb rate than allowed by current engines, said Lynn Rollin, 60th Maintenance Group C-5 AMP project manager.

Once the avionics and engine updates are complete, the aircraft becomes an "M" model, he said. The updates to the aging C-5 should add years of reliability and serviceability to the aircraft.

Once the acceptance flight crew completes their inspection and the aircraft is put back in operational status, there will be only two C-5s left to complete the C-5 AMP project.

"The reliability rate has definitely gone up," Gonos said. "The product they've (Lockheed Martin) put out is solid. The upgrades have been very effective."