Lack of Parts Hurting C-5 Mission Capable Rate Even After $10 Billion in Upgrades
Aug. 9, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak
A recent $10 billion fleetwide upgrade to the Air Force’s largest aircraft, the C-5M Galaxy, has not resulted in a higher mission capable rate—the huge airlifter was at 46 percent in 2023, down from 52 percent in 2022. Officials say the struggles are mostly due to a dried-up parts stream.
“We’re recovering from … budget decisions that were made on the C-5,” Kevin Stamey, program executive officer for mobility and training aircraft, told reporters at the recent Life Cycle Industry Days conference.
“When you cut the budget on a program, and you essentially advertise that, hey, we’re going to retire the system, unfortunately, the supply chain is challenged by getting restarted. I would say that is the singular greatest contributor to the hole we had to dig out [of].”
The C-5 fleet underwent a massive dual upgrade called the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) and Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program (RERP), both of which were completed in 2018. The C-5’s problem-prone GE TF-39 engines were changed out for four GE CF6-80C2 turbofans, which in addition to being more reliable, added 22 percent more thrust, a one-third shorter takeoff roll and a 58 percent improvement in rate of climb. Avionics improvements included cockpit displays, communications, and navigation upgrades.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/c-5-mission-capable-rate-parts-upgrades/
