New facility supports C-5 Galaxy software testing

  • Published
  • By Wayne Crenshaw
  • 78 Air Base Wing Public Affairs
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFNS) --  Robins officials cut the ribbon Sept. 10 to signify the opening of a small but unique facility which promises to make a significant contribution to keeping the C-5 Galaxy flying for many years to come.

The C-5 Integrated Aircraft Test Environment is a 2,200-square foot, two-story building that houses the cockpit salvaged from a C-5 that crashed at Dover Air Force Base, Del., in 2006. The cockpit section was flown to Robins AFB and will be wired up to be made fully functional and used to test software developed by engineers in the 402nd Software Maintenance Group for the aircraft.

Brig. Gen. Lee Levy, commander of the 402nd Maintenance Wing, credited the development of the lab to "visionaries" at Robins who found a way to "turn lemons into lemonade" in the wake of the C-5 crash.

"This is a really great day not just for the 402nd Maintenance Wing, but for the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center integrated Team Robins effort as we take our facilities and our capacities further into the 21st Century to support the warfighter," General Levy told a group packed into the first-floor area for the ribbon cutting.

After the ceremony, attendees were taken upstairs to see the cockpit, which was already wired to have some basic functionality. However, General Levy said, it will take another year to get thousands of wires and connectors set up to make the cockpit fully functional.

The idea is to give the software engineers a way to test software in a real environment without tying up actual C-5s with costly test flights, especially when these planes are heavily involved in current military operations.

"I expect we will get a lot of taxpayer value out of this building and the software we will produce," he said.

The cockpit had been in storage at Robins since January until it was moved into its new home after the steel frame was erected. The building was then finished around it.

The building itself cost $658,000, but another $15 million investment was needed for the set up of the lab, including the cockpit wiring and engineering the lab capability, writing the simulation software and validating everything works as intended.