An Aeronautical Systems Center official says that Air Mobility Command now has eight C-5 airlifters that have completed the Avionics Modernization Program—one more than needed to restart operational test & evaluation. (Another two AMP-complete C-5s are due out this month.) The eight have the new “state-of-the-art” cockpit that is the precursor to the second phase—new engines—of the full C-5 modernization effort. Dave Schairbaum, deputy director of ASC’s C-5 Systems Group, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, says that the plan is to brief Lt. Gen. John Hudson, ASC commander and program executive officer for aircraft, this month then move into OT&E in April.
Lockheed Martin projects more than a billion dollars of losses on a classified program, but company officials said April 23 they are confident it will turn profitable by 2028 and become a "franchise" system in the U.S. military.