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What It's Like To Fly America's Biggest Jet, The Gargantuan C-5 Galaxy
One of Foxtrot Alpha’s readers, Ben Brown, flies the Pentagon’s biggest jet, the mighty Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. (foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
The B747 is actually bigger and the 742 actually competed against the C-5A when the project was up for bid, so I don't know how the figure this at all. Flown in both and sitting backwards in a C5 is actually pretty nice on landing.
I guess it's the biggest the military has. I didn't look clos enough this morning. MTOW on the C% is 840,000 but MTOW on the 747 is 987,000. It is still big though. The 380, I guess is the biggest with MTOW of 1.3 million pounds depending on the version. Either way, they are all big.
C5: length 247ft, wingspan 222ft, MTOW 840,000lbs
B742(& VC-25): length 231ft, wingspan 195ft, MTOW 833,000lbs
B744: length 231ft, wingspan 211ft, MTOW 875,000lbs
B748: length 250ft, wingspan 224ft, MTOW 987,000lbs
(Source: wikipedia.org)
The last two are only operated commercially, so I agree that the C5 is the biggest military aircraft.
The biggest plane in the sky is the Antonov An-225
An-225: length 275ft, wingspan 290ft, MTOW 1,410,958lbs.
B742(& VC-25): length 231ft, wingspan 195ft, MTOW 833,000lbs
B744: length 231ft, wingspan 211ft, MTOW 875,000lbs
B748: length 250ft, wingspan 224ft, MTOW 987,000lbs
(Source: wikipedia.org)
The last two are only operated commercially, so I agree that the C5 is the biggest military aircraft.
The biggest plane in the sky is the Antonov An-225
An-225: length 275ft, wingspan 290ft, MTOW 1,410,958lbs.
I think the landing gear can be cranked around to either compensate for strong crosswinds or to increase the max allowable crosswind. Would be interested in more info on this.
You're thinking of the B-52.
It squats for loading, that much I know.
The original A models had a crosswind computer that was supposed to automatically caster the main gear relative to the runway center line when landing in a crosswind however the computer sometime failed and left the gear cocked at a angle not parallel to the runway, hard on tires and gear struts. The computers were removed from the A models and never installed on the B models. Another device was a fiberoptic scope located by the crew door downstairs that was connected through the nose wheel bulkhead to make sure the nose gear was down and locked if the pilot did not get a lock light in the cockpit he could look in one end of the scope at a line on the gear strut.