Maintainers and porters push plane

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Nicole Leidholm
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  
While many Airmen and their families were fast asleep, Travis Air Force Base, California, crews were up setting world aviation records.

In the early morning of April 3, a Travis C-5M Super Galaxy set 45 records, landing it as the world's top aviation record holder, but none of this would have been possible without the diligence of the maintenance and aerial port Airmen.

According to Tech. Sgt. Chad Oswald, 60th Aerial Port Squadron NCO in charge of load planning, his team of 16 spent a week preparing for the feat.

"It took us all week to build, weigh and palletize the cargo," he said. "It was a bit different since we had to have exact numbers of pallets and weight of the cargo, but it was to ensure the aircraft was balanced properly at takeoff."

The aerial porters built a total of 33 pallets that weighed 265,000 pounds.

"The pallets were filled with cargo netting and chains," Oswald said. "If a base somewhere would need more cargo netting or chains, we could deliver it."

Oswald added that they are able to move more cargo globally because the C-5M can land in more places with less runway and use less fuel, which prevents the plane from having to stop.

"We're just setting the bar for an aircraft that we know it's capable of," he said.

At the same time that the aerial porters were preparing cargo, the maintenance Airmen from the 60th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron were prepping the C-5M for its mission.

"We started working on the aircraft on (March 30) with pre-flight inspections, hot checks - which is where we check avionics and flight controls - (liquid oxygen) and fuel servicing as well as towing it to get weighed before the flight," said Staff Sgt. Garrett Garza, 60th AMXS C-5 crew chief and team lead for the mission.

For Garza and his team of 30, which was almost half reservists, this was standard operations, aside from weighing the aircraft.

The aircraft only gets weighed when things such as the seats or items from the galley are removed or a heavy load is being put on the aircraft, Garza said.

"It's pretty awesome being part of a world record flight, especially as a team lead," Garza said. "This flight just validated the efficiency of the aircraft, the reliability of load power and the capability of it to perform up to standards and exceeded it."