- The Air Mobility Command Museum houses the only C-5 plane on public display anywhere in the world.
- The C-5A Galaxy at the museum was the first and only aircraft to launch an ICBM in flight.
- The giant cargo bay can hold helicopters, tanks, and pallets with “anything from beans to bullets.”
The first iteration of the C-5, the C-5A Galaxy, entered service in 1970.
Then, he pointed to the American flag on the other side of the cargo bay. The space between the two is the distance of the Wright brothers’ first flight: just shy of 120 feet.
The plane’s insulated walls also encase the 103 miles of wiring that keep the aircraft running.
“To put that in perspective, the state of Delaware is 97 miles long from top to bottom,” Hurlburt said. “It’s a small state, but still, the C-5 has more wires than the length of the state of Delaware.”
Vehicles can simply be driven onto C-5s via ramps at the nose and aft doors.
With cargo openings at the front and rear, C-5 planes can be loaded and unloaded simultaneously.
Chains hooked into the floor are used to secure large vehicles during flight.
Larger chains can hold 25,000 pounds, while smaller chains can hold 10,000 pounds.
Any cargo that doesn’t have wheels is loaded onto pallets like this one, which can weigh up to 10,000 pounds each.
The C-5’s cargo hold has space for 36 standard aircraft pallets, which could contain “anything from beans to bullets,” Hurlburt said.
The pallets are rolled onto the plane via tracks in the floor that can be raised or lowered.
“You can flip these over in a matter of minutes and have the whole airplane configured for either rolling stock or for cargo, no problem,” Hurlburt said.
Elevated platforms along the plane’s walls provide space to walk when it’s too full of oversize cargo.
If the plane is loaded with square pallets on tracks, it’s easier to leave aisle space for walking between them. It’s not as simple when the plane is loaded with tanks or helicopters.
Back on the ground, the museum displayed a C-5A Galaxy outboard wing section to give visitors a look at its internal fuel tanks.
The C-5A Galaxy stores fuel in its wings. Its 12 internal tanks — six per wing — hold 51,150 gallons of fuel.
The rare chance to explore a C-5 up close makes the Air Mobility Command Museum worth a trip to Dover Air Force Base.
Of the 52 C-5 aircraft in service in today’s Air Force, 18 are assigned to Dover Air Force Base. If you’re lucky, Hurlburt told me, the museum’s historic planes are parked close enough to the base to see their modern counterparts in action.
“You can come out of that C-5,” he said, pointing to the Galaxy C-5A we’d just walked through, “and then watch one take off right afterwards.”
