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New cargo fleet at WPAFB lets local unit add missions

C-17 Globemaster III has medical transport capability.

The USAF Reserve 445th Airlift Wing has transitioned to the C-17 Globemaster III from the C-5A Galaxy giant cargo jets that once flew through the skies of Dayton from Wright-Patterson AFB. The base is now home to nine of the large cargo jets.

Ty Greenlees The USAF Reserve 445th Airlift Wing has transitioned to the C-17 Globemaster III from the C-5A Galaxy giant cargo jets that once flew through the skies of Dayton from Wright-Patterson AFB. The base is now home to nine of the large cargo jets.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Ty Greenlees The flight crew (from left) Maj. Kevin Sullivan, Capt. Matt Judd and Maj. Doug West review their flight plan before a training mission.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Ty Greenlees Loadmaster Master Sgt. Chuck Fritz (left) helps load pallets before a training flight.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Barrie Barber, Staff Writer 10:09 PM Saturday, February 18, 2012

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE —The ninth and final C-17 Globemaster III has landed at its new home at the Air Force Reserve 445th Airlift Wing, replacing the behemoth C-5A Galaxy the unit once flew.

The C-17 is the Air Force’s primary cargo hauling workhorse, carrying armored vehicles and drones to Meals Ready to Eat and troops to outposts around the world. The 445th’s aging, last C-5A flew this month to the desert “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., said Col. Stephen D. Goeman, Wing commander. The latest C-17 arrived days later.

“For the local area, we’re very happy we have a new and sustaining mission,” said Goeman, 54, of Beavercreek. “It’s very good for our unit and for the area. So we’re pretty excited that we’re busy.”

Many air crew members among the wing’s 2,300-strong personnel, who support a $57 million payroll, will trek to either Joint Base Charleston, S.C., or Altus Air Force Base, Okla., over the next year to train on the new aircraft.

The unit flies two to three real-world missions a week, but expects that to double as training concludes over the next year.

With the arrival of the C-17, aeromedical evacuation missions have returned to the unit, the colonel said. The vital function of flying troops wounded overseas to medical treatment centers wasn’t performed with the C-5, he said. “We’re back in that mission again with this airplane,” he said.

The airlifters stay busy on the run: The wing has flown to Germany, Sweden, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, among other locales in the past year.

They transported 7,600 passengers, nearly 16,000 tons of cargo, and transported more than 12,000 aeromedical patients during fiscal year 2010 to sustain operations across the nation and in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the unit.

“We’ve done a lot,” said Master Sgt. Bob Brown, 50, a loadmaster from Wilmington. “We’re a proud unit.”

Goeman, a 32-year Air Force and Air Force Reserve veteran, has flown — and taxied — both the Globemaster III and the Galaxy.

“Whatever one you’re currently flying is the one you enjoy the most,” the pilot said.

But there’s a definite difference on terra firma, he noted. The Galaxy is nearly the length of a football field with a six-story tall tail.

“The C-5 is unique on ground operations,” Goeman said. “It’s another degree of parking and then taxiing the big monster around. That’s more of an art form than skill.

“(With) 28 tires on the C-5 and turning you can definitely tell when you’re flying with someone who is skilled and smooth and someone who is very mechanical.”

Gone is the yoke-style steering wheel on the C-5, replaced in the C-17 with a control stick and a Heads Up Display, part of the “glass cockpit” features in the newer cargo jet, pilots said.

“It almost looks like a fighter-type aircraft, which is kind of neat,” said Maj. Matt Crockett, 34, an Air Force Reserve pilot who flew the C-17 on active-duty for 12 years before joining the reserve.

The C-17, while smaller than a C-5, has enough cargo space to haul two semi-tractor trailers parked side by side, said Brown, the loadmaster. The aircraft can lift 102 paratroopers or haul about 170,000 pounds.

“When they designed this airplane, it was designed with the loadmaster in mind,” said Brown, 50, a Wilmington resident. “It wasn’t designed for the pilot.”

The C-5As date to the late 1960s and early 1970s. The more recent C-17s were built in the 1990s. The smaller, more nimble C-17 also can takeoff and land from runways as short at 3,500 feet.

“Reliability is No. 1,” Goeman said. “It can go into a lot more austere airfields.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2363 or bbarber@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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