During the Dover years I made a special effort to get to know my boss (Oh My!) and spent time on the softball fields. The first year I completed my two-year career as an umpire. The second summer found me playing shortstop for the Headquarters squadron championship contending team (Standing on second base) and the Headquarters squadron over ‘30’ base champs. But the real story is about the huge air frame stationed on the air patch.
Dover Air Force Base is home to The 436th Air Wing with its C-5 Galaxy aircraft (Since my time in Dover the aircraft has been updated and is now known as the C-5 Super Galaxy.) This is the air frame that flew us to Hawaii back in the eighties. (Alexa: Play, Jet Airliner by Steve Miller Band)
The size and complexity of the C-5 make it a maintenance queen. The ship has primary, secondary and tertiary systems in an attempt to keep the aircraft operational. It spends more time in maintenance than in the air. The story goes that on the first test flight landing one of the wheels came rolling off the landing gear. One colonel was heard to exclaim to another colonel, “Well, that’s why we have twenty-eight of them.” Signs are posted on Highway 1 under the approach path to Dover warning people not to park there due to parts falling from the sky. I’m not kidding!
When it is in operation the C-5 is an incredible machine. The cargo hold is one foot longer than the length of the first powered flight (120 feet) by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. Bay doors at both nose and tail open to enable “drive-through” loading and unloading of cargo. The front end ‘kneels’ to make off-loading that much easier. (Showing friends from East Berlin, PA the C-5) I was on the flight deck one time during the ‘unkneeling’. (Niece Kelli on the flight deck.) As the nose section lowers the forward landing gear extends giving the feeling of some major movement upward on the flight deck. That was a cool moment. (Sarah with cousin Jonathan in front of a kneeling C-5 with the nose up.)
Sitting on the tarmac the C-5 tail stands 65 feet above the ground. (Giving a tour of a C-5 to my family.) We joked that the tallest structure in Delaware was the C-5. One day I crawled up the inside tail ladder on an air frame in the hanger. When I stepped out on the stabilizer I had to pause after a little bit of vertigo touched me. I felt like I was standing on the top of the world with my head in the rafters of the hanger. (Stepping out of the C-5 with Sarah and Ben who later graduated from West Point. I don’t know where I went wrong trying to get him into the Air Force.)
Once in the air the rear landing gear rotates 90 degrees before it tucks into the wheel well. (Sarah with cousins Kelli and Kendra and their parents Jeff and Randy inside the wheel well.) In the air the plane is so big it looks like it is just hanging around without getting anywhere. (The cousins sitting in the passenger section. The little guy closest to you with a finger in his nose is Ben who eventually graduated from West Point.) One day hanging around the flightline myself I watched a Bradley Fighting Vehicle drive into the cavernous spaces of the big airplane. (Alexa: Play ‘Soulful Strut by Young Holt Unlimited.)
On an exercise in Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen, Texas I watched while five AH-64 Apache helicopters were loaded onto one C-5.
On that same exercise I was standing in the Tower looking over the empty desert when suddenly three Apaches rose out of a ravine looking straight at us with all their fire power pointed our way. If I had been hooked up to a blood pressure cuff the reading would have gone off the chart. Those things were scary looking.
During that exercise my Chapel Manager, Donnell and I were given the nick names “God Guy” and “Shadow”. You have to stretch out the ‘ow’ like ‘ooh’ to pronounce Donnell’s nick name correctly. Donnell is to my right during a ceremony after the exercise. We are being presented with a certificate of appreciation by the Wing Commander for our efforts supporting the troops in Kilean, TX. Apparently, we were a hit! Donnell and I were good friends and spent many hours together in ministry during my tour at Dover Air Force Base.
The C-5 is truly a bigger than life air frame.
See you next time.