MXS Airmen build new C-5B model

  • Published
  • By MSgt. Andrew Biscoe
  • 439th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass. --  By day and night, they repair the Air Force's biggest aircraft. On a smaller scale - and symbolically at the front gate, they've added a C-5B to the base inventory - a model with a 19-foot wingspan.

Several 439th Maintenance Squadron Airmen spent several months assembling the 1:12 scale C-5. It replaces the one destroyed by the July 2011 micro burst.

Just weeks ahead of the August Great New England Air Show, crews assisted maintenance Airmen with placing the 1,000-pound aluminum model on its pedestal June 6.

Looking like a miniature version of a Lockheed-Martin assembly plant, where its real counterparts are built, Hangar 7's Galaxy was painstakingly put together each duty day, piece by aluminum piece.

MSgt. Dan Labelle, an air reserve technician and aircraft structural repair technician, supervised the work of four senior airmen, each on 270-day seasoning tours.
The model is built to sustain anything Mother Nature throws at it, MSgt. Labelle said. The fuselage of the destroyed C-5B replica, sat near the new model.

"We use it as a point of reference," MSgt. Labelle said. "We know this new one is a lot stronger. It has some serious beef to it."

That "beef" is aluminum, while foam comprised the former lighter model.

Col. Kerry Kohler, 439th Maintenance Group commander, first approached the MXS Airmen about the idea after a micro burst flipped the model over on its tail last summer.

"What these guys really got out of this was training - our young Airmen kept up with their training on the 'real' C-5s out there, while contributing to a very important symbol for everyone to see as they enter the base," he said.

The scale model tail's rises 3 feet into the air.

The Airmen balanced the demands of staying on the timeline with the real aircraft on the flight line.

"Some days it has to take a back burner to the real aircraft work," TSgt. Labelle said.
The MXS machine shop staff assisted in building the tie box for the wings.

Eventually, the B-model will become the M-model that will be the real thing on the flight line, beginning in 2014. It will include replicas of the new CF6 engines and will read "Super Galaxy" on the fuselage.

Other Airmen involved in the model project were: TSgt. Sidney Smith, SrA. Ryan Oleksiw, SrA. David Cardin, SrA. Davis Cote, SrA. Michael Creed, SrA. Kyle McCormick, A1C Patrick Bergeron, Amn. Matthew Fugler, and Amn. Todd Vaughn.