12.05.06
Having Fun is… Getting to ride in an Air Force C5 Galaxy
I’m totally too busy for this, but when you get a chance to ride in a C5 Galaxy on an aerial refueling mission, you just don’t pass that up. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. It gets better - there was a drawing between the 17 people on board to let 4 people sit in the cockpit for various parts of the flight. I got lucky, and my name was picked. I got to watch the refueling process, which was awesome, and I have some pictures here after the jump.
This year I am participating in the Leadership Central Delaware program that is sponsored by the Central Delaware Chamber of Commerce. 20 people are selected each year from candidates that apply, and the program is designed for future local leaders. It gives you a chance to see local government, business, and military in ways that you normally wouldn’t be able to see. It is pretty awesome. This month’s activities obviously involve the Dover Air Force Base, which is a huge air force base here in the city where I live an work.
The C5 Galaxy is the Air Force’s largest plane. It can carry 3 greyhound buses. Just how big is it? Take a look:
We flew from the Dover Air Force Base out to Illinois and back. Over Ohio, we met up with a tanker plane, and the pilots took turns practicing connecting to the refueling plane. When we got close to the refueling plane, they called me up to the cockpit, and I got to sit behind the pilot. Here is what it looked like as we approached the tanker.
This was really cool. But once we got closer to the plane, you could see how much skill was required to maneuver up to the tanker. The tanker was on autopilot, but the C5 pilots where flying manually. Here is what it looked like as we got closer.
See the two black strips under the nose of the plane? Check out what those are for….
The letters on the left are for DOWN and UP, and the letters on the right are for FORE and AFT. When the fueling arm is attached, it telescopes in and out as the planes are moving around. The yellow lights help the pilot that is getting fuel to line up the plane. As you can see, this picture was taken when he was dead-on in alignment. The yellow lights are in the middle of both bars.
What is cool about the picture above, is that you can see the fuel boom operator in the plane above us. One of the crew members of our plane took this shot for me. You can see her headphones on her in the little window. Pretty neat. What is also neat is that the boom operator has to lay on her stomach to do her job. When we turned around to come back to Delaware, they kept refueling even in a 15 degree banked turn. Cool.
This was one of the new C5 cockpits. It had all new LCD screens, which pictures don’t do justice. How big is the cargo hold? Take a look.
There are two areas in the plane for passengers. About 12 crew member seats up behind the pilots, then you take the long walk through the cargo hold back to the seats in the back. This steep ladder is the only way up:
I rode part of the way back in this upper area at the back of the plane, which looks surprisingly like a conventional commercial airliner, but with no windows.
And so ended by adventure. Total time: 9 hours. It really was a once in a lifetime opportunity. These huge planes occasionally fly by my neighborhood, as I live only 5 miles from the air base. I’ve marveled at them for the last 10 years, and this trip gave me a new appreciation for these huge planes. They are important to helping America in not only war efforts, but also with humanitarian missions. These planes were used to transport relief supplies to Pakistan after their massive earthquake that killed 70,000 people.
Thank you to the Dover Air Force Base, and to the Central Delaware Chamber of Commerce for making this opportunity a reality.
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