Re: Errr. Pardon?

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Los wrote:

> > C5's carry 120mm and 155mm's all the time. Now you may note that
this is
> > as cargo, but that was where the Centaro was being referred to. An
Air
> > Portable Tank is usually not going to be in the 70 tonne range like
the
> > Abrams unless you are talking about Strategic transport.
> 
> I think there is a misunderstanding here. The AC130 has a cannon on it
along
> with 40mm bofors and mini guns, it's a fire support aircraft not a
transport,
> so you guys are talking two seperate things. <grin>. AC130 is not a
transport.

Again, I do know what an AC130 is. The A part indicates its primary duty

is "attack", the C part is the residual designation from its basic Herky

Bird use. One could use it as a transport, but it doesn't have much room

with all of the ammo bins, armament, sensors and the "booth" up front 
behind the flight deck. 

Might I offer you a healthy dose of tongue and cheek? When I was
speaking 
of C5s carrying 120mms and 155mms, I was thinking of well M1A2s and 
M109A5's and A6s. Heck, I bet you could have fit a M110 w/203mm on a 
Galaxy (I don't have any tech books on C5 Load specs). 

One really interesting thing was when I was at LockMart we did an 
unsolicited bid to the USAF to build Additional C5s (A -D, Not sure what

happened to the -Cs, we do have -As and -Bs). The general gist of the
bid 
was uprating the Turbo Fans with those developed for the B777 (which has

2 of the monster engines). The C5-D would have had 4!. Time to cruise
was 
amazing, as well as fuel consumption. It could go further, faster and 
with more cargo than ever before. Another idea was increasing the cargo 
door width to allow for double palette wide loads (or two palettes 
across) of loads. So Fitting a 2.5Ton truck and a 155mm towed gun side
by 
side meant you could get 4 pairs in there (or was it 5?) rather than
half 
of what the C5-A/B carries. 

One of the other idea was to use the C5 as a tactical aircraft for 
tactical drops. Now that would have been impressive! I would have gladly

paid extra taxes to see that kind of massive airdrop. I certainly think 
it would have been better than the C-13 with all its teething troubles. 
Better a tried and true airframe with nice updates. Too many composites 
are the C-13's weakness IMO. 

------------------------------------------------------------------
- Ryan Montieth Gill	  NRA / DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
- ryan.gill@turner.com	    I speak not for CNN, nor they for me -
- rmgill@mindspring.com 	     www.mindspring.com/~rmgill/ -
- '85 Honda CB700S  -  '72 Honda CB750K  - '76 Chevy MonteCarlo  -
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