Once a C-5 receives the avionics upgrade, it can move to the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program, the second phase of the service’s massive modernization program for its fleet of 112 C-5 airlifters. Currently, USAF has a has a system development and demonstration contract with Lockheed Martin to upgrade two C-5Bs and one C-5A, replacing various “bad actors,” says Aeronautical Systems Center official Dave Schairbaum. Lockheed will install 50 new reliability enhancement systems and components, make structural upgrades, and install new F138-GE-100 engines, pylons, and auxiliary power units. Lockheed completed the required ground engine start test on the first aircraft in January, and Schairbaum says first flight is on track for April. He expects the second aircraft to fly in July, followed by the third in September. Flight tests are to continue through 2007.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. still “believes” in his mantra of “Accelerate Change or Lose”—and indicated the doctrinal changes it produced when he was Air Force Chief of Staff played a role in the service’s recent response to Iran’s aerial assault on Israel, he…