C-5 Galaxy - The USAF's Heavyweight Champion of the Air

[Music] it's been the heavyweight workhorse of the united states air force since 1970 moving everything from emergency food relief to main battle tanks and even other aircraft and pretty much everything else in between it's also the only ever plane to carry and launch a full-size intercontinental ballistic missile in the air even at 50 years old there is no plane as far as we know to replace the lockheed c5 galaxy in the near future but after a 17-year modernization program and even bringing back mothballed ones the c5s are expected to be in service to at least 20 40. this is the story so far of the biggest plane in the usaf today's video is sponsored by fast hosts now if you're in the uk fast hosts are giving you the chance to win an amazing tech bundle including your ultimate pc setup worth up to 5 000 pounds the link is in the description and i'll tell you more about that later like the b-52 the lockheed c5 galaxy has been in every major u.s conflict from vietnam up to the present day it's the largest transport aircraft in the usaf and although it's not the biggest transport plane in the world that accolade now goes to the singular antonov an-225 mirror what it does offer is a fleet of aircraft with a range of up to 000 kilometers unloaded although when fully loaded with up to 127 tons of cargo the range drops to 4260 kilometers because it can be refueled in the air it's real range loaded or unloaded is only really limited to the time that the engines can be kept running continuously and the multiple crews on board can be fed watered and rested during the flight the beginnings of the c5 go back to 1961 when the next generation replacements of the douglas c-133 and the lockheed starlifters were being looked at by several companies what was needed was a bigger aircraft for a variety of outsized equipment the military is now using but also they needed it to be able to be moved to anywhere in the world quickly this would need not only a radical design for the airframe but also engines that had to be big enough and powerful enough to do the job in 1964 an official proposal for the heavy logistics system or the cx-hls went out to the top aircraft makers in the us from this boeing lockheed and douglas were given a one-year study contract to come up with an aircraft and general electric and pratt whitney the same for the engines all the designs from the three companies had swept back wings and placed the cockpit on top of the fuselage they also had front and rear cargo doors to allow simultaneous loading and unloading although the air force thought the boeing design was the best the lowest total cost solution of a time was the lockheed one so in the end they were selected to build 81 c5as which were delivered between 1969 and 1973. the program also produced the general electric t-39 the world's first high bypass turbofan engine which was not only much more powerful than any previous engine it was also much more efficient and led the way for future engine designs that would power the very large commercial jets like the boeing 747 in the future due to their unique high bypass design at the time and their priority on power world the noise this gave the 239 and c5 a rather loud and characteristic engine wind when compared to new modern engines almost fitted to the latest c5m although boeing lost the contract their design wasn't wasted even before the competition was finished they were asked by the president of pan am to build a super large passenger plane to replace the boeing 707 so a lot of the ideas from the cx design would go on to form the basis of the boeing 747. in the long run boeing would go on to become the world's largest aircraft manufacturer and make far more money off the back of a 747 producing over 1550 over the next 50 years compared to the 131 lockheed c5s but if boeing did well out of not winning lockheed had more mixed fortunes with the c5 becoming the first development program to have an overrun of 1 billion dollars there were also problems with the wings with cracks being detected during fatigue testing by the 1980s non-emergency loads on the c5a had to be reduced to no more than 23 tonnes out of a total 127 tonne capacity and a one and a half billion dollar repair program called h-mod to replace the wings was initiated which doubled the total cost of the program in 1975 the air force admitted that the military cargo version of a boeing 747 had a bigger load capacity than the c5 but on the other hand the 747 couldn't carry oversized essential wartime items including the u21 airplane a 20 ton crane an m22 crane a rock crusher screen machine and a ditch machine some of the pentagon argued that the one and a half billion dollar repair cost to fix for c5 they could buy 30 boeing 747 cargo planes which had no underlying issues and were proven in commercial use even so in 1982 50 more c5bs were ordered with upgrades and modifications to make them more reliable and easy to maintain two of those c5bs were converted to c5cs for large cargo like satellites and other space related items starting in 1998 and to be used by the dod and nasa after a study in the early 2000s showed that the c5 airframe still had 80 percent of its service life left the remaining one c5a 49 c5bs and two c5cs were converted to the c5m super galaxy with new ge cf6 engines and mounting pylons avionics airframe and skin landing gear cockpit and pressurization systems this would give the c5m a better range shorter take-off and landing capabilities and be more efficient with lower operating and life cycle costs the conversion program started in 2006 and ended up in 2018 with its lifting nose nicknamed the knights visor and height controlled steerable landing gear with 28 wheels the c5 can not only land on unprepared runways once there it can be lowered to the height of a truck bed making it easy to both load and unload cargo at the same time effectively making it a drive-through loading system but it's not only cargo it can carry it also has a passenger compartment which can hold up to 80 in rear-facing seats which are considered safer in the event of a crash although the c5 galaxy was designed to carry most things an army needs to fight a war in 1974 it was suggested it could be used to launch a minuteman icbm something which is normally stored and launched from an underground silo the thinking was that if the soviets initiated a first strike on the us many of the missile silos would be destroyed before they could launch however if you could carry and launch them from a plane they would be virtually untraceable compared to a fixed silo site so in october 1974 a 39 tonne 17 meter long minuteman missile without its nuclear warhead was loaded onto a c5a and flown to 20 000 feet here the rear doors were opened and the missile in its holding sled was pushed out of the aircraft on operation the crew described as being like dumping a wheelbarrow full of water it was dangerous due to the sudden drop in weight and also the changing the aircraft's centre of gravity and also if it got caught up on the way out the parachutes opened and brought the missile to the vertical position the explosive bolts released the sled and when it was clear and the missile's position had stabilized the launch motors were fired and it flew up just like it would have done if it had been launched from the ground although the test proved it could be done the idea was dropped due to engineering and security difficulties though it was never officially recognized many believe that it was used as a bargaining tool at the strategic arms limitation talks or salt 2 between the us and the soviets that particular test aircraft complete with its number 90014 also known as 014 and its original paint scheme is now the only c5 to have been retired to a museum and is now at the air mobility command museum at dover air force base near delaware the c5 was also used on other unusual missions including ferrying around partially dismantled versions of the then secret f-117 nighthawk the world's first operational stealth aircraft which was being developed at the time the c5 was big enough to do this in secrecy leaving no external clue as to what they were carrying the c5 was also a candidate to carry the space shuttle too but was dropped in favor of the boeing 747 because of its low wing design and the c5 would have remained the property of the usaf but the boeings could be bought outright and owned by nasa although the c5 was originally designed as a military cargo plane there were plans drawn up in 1968 to develop into a commercial passenger and cargo plane much like the boeing 747 ended up the l 500 passenger plane would in theory have been able to carry up to a thousand people although the cargo version was probably the more realistic of the two there was interest from some carriers but in the end no orders received due to the high operating costs caused by low fuel efficiencies even before the oil crisis of the 1970s with its ability to transport oversized loads on short unprepared runways anywhere on the planet even to the u.s mcmurdo station in antarctica and with new modernization efforts in its communications mission computing and air traffic management to meet faa regulations the c5m super galaxy is set to continue in active service well into the 2040s and if the example of the b-52s are anything to go by it could end up being for even longer so maybe after a tricky start it won't have turned out too bad after all our sponsor for this video fast fosters are also big in the internet world providing services from domain names to web hosting to email hosting and cloud backup now you may be wondering why you may need a domain name even if you don't have a website well you can still use it as part of your email address i could have something like joeblogs at curiousdroid.com instead of a more generic joe blogs at yahoo or gmail.com he just looks more personal 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Channel: Curious Droid

Views: 554,274

Keywords: c-5 galaxy, c-5a, c-5b, c-5c, c-5m, lockheed c-5, lockheed c-5 galaxy, t-39 engine, cf-6 engine, transport plane, boeing 747, cx-hls boeing, minuteman missile c-5, paul shillito, paul shillito curious droid, curious droid, usaf, dod, pentagon, c-5 engine sound

Id: s7cS9jwfjaA

Length: 12min 48sec (768 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020