In article <XnsA90F4C3B312DFnoemailattnet@216.166.97.131>, Mitchell Holman
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Happy 50th birthday to America's biggest military airplane
more at
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/29/politics/c5-galaxy-largest-us-military-plane-50th-anniversary/index.html
that forever changed America's military and airline industry -- is turning half
a century old.
When you see a C-5 Galaxy on the ground for the first time, the first thing that
strikes you is... it's freakishly huge.
Length: 247 feet. Wingspan: wider than a Boeing 747-400. The pilot sits about
three-and-a-half stories high in the cockpit, and the plane's T-tail stands as
tall as a six-story building.
The transport jet certainly must have turned heads on June 30, 1968, when it
first took off from a runway at Lockheed Martin's historic factory north of
Atlanta. Until the 1980s, it reigned as the world's largest airplane.
For the first time, the C-5 made it possible for 70-ton tanks, fighter jets,
multiple helicopters or other huge cargo to go just about anywhere in a matter
of hours instead of weeks aboard a ship.
It made the Pentagon more nimble. More flexible to quickly shifting events. And
deployed.
The C-5 is credited with spurring the development of new engine technology that
benefits virtually all air travelers today.
More about that in a second. First, let's talk about this plane's superpowers:
unloaded from the front and the back
brothers' first flight back in 1903.
troops, or other passengers
Birthday party
Hitting the big 5-0 usually calls for a celebration. So last Tuesday, at the
same Georgia site where it flew for the first time, politicians, Air Force
generals, business executives and assembly-line workers gathered under a big
tent to mark the jet's golden anniversary.
A newly upgraded C-5M, the big bad belle of the ball, sat nearby, filling up the
background, standing on its 28 wheels, holding its T-tail proudly in the air and
acting all nonchalant about those four beautifully gargantuan engines hanging
off its wings.
"This airplane has served as an ambassador of the skies -- both for both war and
for peace," Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal told the crowd.
much more and pics at
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/29/politics/c5-galaxy-largest-us-military-plane-50th-anniversary/index.html
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