The West Virginia Air National Guard’s 167th Airlift Wing at Martinsburg ANG Base completed the last phase of a five-year infrastructure project to support its transition to the C-5 Galaxy transport, according to wing officials. Extending the base’s taxiway alpha to enable the massive airlifters to launch from the runway overrun without back-taxiing and turning around was “the last military construction project for the base’s C-5 bed down,” said Maj. Paul Henry, Martinsburg’s deputy base engineer, in an Aug. 8 release. The final $10 million taxiway upgrade “will save a lot of fuel and a lot of wear and tear on the landing gear,” he added. The 167th AW began converting from the C-130 to the C-5 in 1999; it now operates a force of 11 Galaxies. Reconfiguring the airfield layout to handle the C-5s required widening and realigning taxiways, installing new lighting, and reworking access roads, costing approximately $50 million, states the release. (Martinsburg report by SSgt. Sheree Grebenstein)
Some U.S. personnel are evacuating Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, America’s main military base in the Middle East, as President Donald Trump is weighing military action against Iran in response to its crackdown on protestors, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
