on the ground and there were no injuries.
However, the C-5 fleet was grounded for two
months while the issue was investigated.TO WAR
The Galaxy’s exposure to the ongoing US
conflict in Vietnam had been limited during
its early days in service, but this changed
towards the end of the war. Five Galaxies
helped transport the USMC’s Air Group
12 from Bien Hoa, Vietnam, to Iwakuni,
Japan, on February 2, 1975. On May 3 of
that year three C-5As landed at Da Nang to
deliver six much-needed tanks to the ground
forces. The situation was desperate, and
the brand new airlifters made tempting – and
hard to miss – targets for the Vietcong. The
Galaxies didn’t stop long and are said to
have been on the ground for less than 30
minutes. Other missions were undertaken
in the South East Asia theatre until the war
ended in 1975.
No C-5s were lost due to enemy action,
although one (68-0218) crash-landed in
a rice field 14 minutes after take-off whileferrying orphaned children from Saigon at
the end of the conflict. It caused a massive
loss of life for those on board – 138 souls on
the C-5 perished in the accident which was
attributed to mechanical failure. After the
war ended, the C-5s returned to their usual
duties of ferrying cargo and people around
the globe, supporting the military and
providing disaster relief aid when needed.
The last Alpha variant, 70-0467, was
supplied from the factory to MAC’s 436th
MAW on May 18, 1973 – 81 had been
produced. The fleet was giving good
service, but there were a handful of worrying
incidents regarding the aircraft’s safety. The
Saigon accident was by far the worse, but in
April 1974 a large part of the wing flap flew
off a C-5A in flight, and a door came away
in the air on another. There were no injuries
on either occasion. On September 27 of
that same year, 68-0227 was destroyed
following an emergency landing due to an
on-board fire, and another (66-8306) was
badly damaged when a blaze broke out on
the wing in flight.UPDATES
A series of update programmes were
introduced to keep the Alpha variant as
effective as possible. A new triple inertial
navigation system (INS) was installed in the
late 1970s, with the first operational aircraft
receiving the system while undergoing
scheduled depot level maintenance in
December 1978. The rest of the fleet
followed when it was their turn for a major
service at the San Antonio Air Logistics
Center at Kelly AFB in Texas.
Around the same time the INS was being
developed, an extensive wing replacement
programme was under way. The new wing
offered much greater strength, could carry
more fuel, and increased the payload of the
C-5s. The massive upgrade, which used
aluminium alloys that were new at the time,
was approved and work began on the first
frontline aircraft in late January 1982. All of
the command’s 77 Galaxies were converted
over the next five years and a new tactical
air navigation (TACAN) system was added.
Although the wing replacement
programme meant that more cargo could be
carried further, more capacity was needed
to support the US and NATO forces at the
height of the Cold War. Subsequently, the
American government looked to increase
its airlifter fleet and, after much deliberation,
decided to buy 50 more Galaxies. The
order for the new-build C-5Bs, which were
essentially a re-engined version of the
latest specification A model with improved
avionics, was placed on the last day of 1982.
The first aircraft, 83-1285, was delivered
to the 443rd MAW at Altus, Oklahoma on
January 8, 1986 and the last (87-0045) to
the 60th MAW on April 17, 1989.
Two C-5Cs (68-0213 and 68-0216)
were produced by heavily modifying a pair
of Alpha models in 1987. The work on
the USAF airframes was undertaken by
Lockheed and enabled the pair to assist
NASA to transport outsized items used in the
space shuttle programme. The alterations
were mainly focused on lengthening and
widening the cargo bay area by stripping60 Aviation News incorporating Jets August 2018C-5A 70-0453 from the 536th MAW
displaying at the Mildenhall Air Fete
on May 26, 1990. Key CollectionMilitary Airlift Command’s C-5s adopted camouflage paint schemes in the mid-1980s.
Key Collection58-63_galaxyDC.mfDC.mf.indd 60 03/07/2018 11:23