According to Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, the service has not closed the door on providing new engines as well as avionics upgrades to its oldest C-5 airlifters, the A models. Currently, the service has planned only to employ full modernization—the so-called RERP for reliability enhancement and reengining program—for 49 C-5B models and two C-5C models. It has fully modernized one C-5A model and two C-5Bs for the RERP test program; those three aircraft are now C-5M models. Lockheed Martin began work on the first production RERP aircraft last summer and this month received low-rate-initial-production funding.
After years of describing to lawmakers and Pentagon leaders the nature of that threat and the key role spacepower plays in deterring conflict in the domain and enabling the rest of the joint force, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters during AFA’s Warfare Symposium here that the message appears to…