C-141 siting

[AirDOGGe]

Re: C-141 siting

More like they are needed other places right now. With all that's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan and... well, that whole part of the world, flying in circles around the old air patch for training takes a backseat.

That's why I included the"active duty" part (heh-heh).





I can also assume that in the last 2 decades computer-driven full-motion flight simulators have become so sophisticated that they may have assumed many of those flight training duties. Saves fuel, wear-and-tear and relieves aircraft for real Mil work.

[Flyer57]

Re: C-141 siting

Never say never is correct. I've seen a few odd things at different AFB's and small airports.
You never know what Uncle is going to bring out of mothballs for some idea some high up has.
As for the masses of 141's of which I have many wonderful memories from Norton, I go by DM's boneyard every so often. You still see a few t-38's and other stuff but the vast majority is C-130's followed closely by 141's. then B-52's. I would not doubt a 141 sitting somewhere today but you saying it may be a C-5 is like saying, I saw a malibu but it may have been a vet. I'm not sure.
Other than they both have four suck and blows under the wings I don't see how you could mistake the long skinny for the big fat. And on approch the 141 is noisy as heck. Where the C-5 is very high pitched but much quieter.

[Leo]

Re: C-141 siting

Having lived in Vacaville, under the various Travis approaches, for over 30years, and staying there TDY now, I can attest that the traffic is much lower! The constant whine off the C-5's was a back drop to life back in the 70's, 80's and 90's and is all but gone now. The pattern was always full of C-5's, 141's and KC-135's and KC-10's back then. You could heare the 135's run up and take off at night, and we were 10 miles away.
I remember that the 141's had retired, does anyone know if it due to wing life limits or just "cuz"? Seemed that even with the C-17 coming in that they would be useful in some capacity.
On a side note my first accidental unusual attitude in a sailplane came when I hit the wake of a C-5 that had to be at least 5 miles away, ending up upside down and getting some spin practice. I thought I was clear by a huge margin but discovered I had made a slight misjudgement. I can only imagine what being closer would have been like!

[rampking]

Re: C-141 siting

It was my understanding that the Max loads carried during Desert Storm shortened the lifespan of the C-141 by at least 5 years.

[AirDOGGe]

Re: C-141 siting

I don't know about excessive loads, but I do know they flew a massive number of hours/sorties. That would have used up much of their service life right there versus peacetime operations.

During Desert Shield, a C-141B from the 437th Military Airlift Wing (MAW) at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, was the first American aircraft into Saudi Arabia, transporting an Airlift Control Element (ALCE) from the 438th MAW at McGuire AFB, New Jersey.

In the following year, Starlifters completed the most airlift missions (7,047 out of 15,800) in support of the Gulf War. They also carried more than 41,400 passengers and 139,600 tons of cargo. Eighty percent of Air Force C-141Bs were used in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the rest were flying high-priority missions elsewhere around the world.

Overall, the strategic airlift to the Persian Gulf was the largest since World War II. By the cease-fire, Air Force airlifters had moved 482,000 passengers and 513,000 tons of cargo. Viewed in ton miles, the Gulf War airlift was equivalent to repeating the Berlin Airlift, a 56-week operation, every six weeks.

They were just plain used-up and were too expensive to re-fit. The coming of the C-17 helped dig it's grave too I believe, since the latter could carry bulkier payloads into smaller airfields.


.

Having lived in Vacaville, under the various Travis approaches, for over 30years, and staying there TDY now, I can attest that the traffic is much lower! The constant whine off the C-5's was a back drop to life back in the 70's, 80's and 90's and is all but gone now.

Like my late great grandfather's house in Merced, Calif..... B-52's and their tankers were always whining overhead on their final approach to Castle A.F.B.....They looked to be about 600-700 feet up when passing over our location and flying slow. What an impressive site those big 8-engined birds were!

I can't recall if I stopped seeing B-52s over his place in the late 80's or early 90's...The base closed in '95 but I think the big bombers stopped flying overhead well before that.


And it's the same here at home in Mountain View. P-3 Orions and Hercules' use to appear in the skies pretty much every day. Now we're lucky to see one C-130 per couple months.... Nothing up there but airliners and business jets heading for San Jose, Oakland or San Fran now. []


The "Cold War" may have been a very bad thing, but it sure was an exciting time for aviation-fans, eh?

[kiwiracefan]

Re: C-141 siting

hmmmm even way down here in Dunedin NZ we used to see a couple of 141's a year flying into Dunedin Airport when the ANG were using the 141's in Operation Deep Freeze support... now with the -17's havent seen one yet

[Flyer57]

Re: C-141 siting

Used up is right. Not only did they fly the billions of hours loaded, I remember never having a soft landing in one. I asked the pilot one time and he told me it was because the cocxkpit sat so far from the mains they never really knew when they were going to touch. You can imagine the stress on the forward fuslage bouncing that many times. And landing like that loaded?