Gear retraction on the C-5M Galaxy - Credits: fraproductionsyt

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WishDirect5243@reddit

Flew 3,800 hours on her as a Flight Engineer and to . memorize all the aspects of it's operational mechanics

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theblackestrose@reddit

My dad was a flight engineer on them. He did 30 years and retired as an e9. Yall probably knew each other

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scigs6@reddit

Got to sit in the cockpit of one of these at an air show. It was like sitting in a living room compared to other cockpits I’ve been in.

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theblackestrose@reddit

My dad was a flight engineer on these. When I was younger I just couldn’t fully appreciate how big and cool these planes are.

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freshgrilled@reddit

I'll wait until I find a video that also shows the front gear retracting completely and THEN I'll grab a cig

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cyanide_sunrise2002@reddit

Need a shirt that says "i saw a C-5 and all i got was this massive erection"

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cyanide_sunrise2002@reddit

nearly catatonic from euphoria s'alright.

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TheTypoon@reddit

Is it entyrely necessary for them to retract like that

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Conan-doodle@reddit

Shout out to the camera person too. That was A grade!!

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MattVarnish@reddit

The B 58 gear is 10 times crazier

The nosewheel disconnects and retracts around the giant fuel tank while the mains are on a trapeze to fit in the thin wing

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seeasea@reddit

The u2 just leaves the wheels on the ground, lol

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Axolotis@reddit

Does all this rotation seem like it introduces more points of potential failure?

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0jam3290@reddit

Yes. Very much so. But the Hustler was a multi-engine delta wing supersonic nuclear bomber designed in the 50s, so it was always gonna be a maintenance hog.

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maxehaxe@reddit

No reason to be ashamed, can happen to anyone.

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Whoa_Im_Cooking_Yay@reddit

Glad I read other people’s comment. Yeah the video is garbage. Skip it everyone.

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rhit06@reddit

GIF form: http://ramrao.com/aircraft/b58-hustler/images/nosegear-anim.gif

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viperlemondemon@reddit

Watching one takeoff you swear it’s gonna fall out of the sky because it seems like it just sits in the air for a few minutes

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TessaFractal@reddit

Guessing that's why it seems to take ages before the gear starts going up. Pilots still trying to determine if they are climbing.

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Seriously, I haven't seen a C-5 in the air, but I got a similar feeling when I first saw a Boeing 777 that was on the climbout. When I quickly checked my radar app, it said it was somewhere between 6,000 to 8,000ft, but it may as well have been a 1/10th of that, it felt that big for being so high. And it felt as slow as a normal Cessna going by, even though it was certainly in excess of 200kts at that point!

The way they just seem to hang is very blimp like, something that is actually low and slow.

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CuppieWanKenobi@reddit

Like it's protesting the fact that it was asked to get in the air, then says (in Eeyore voice) okay, I guess I'll fly now.... ?

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allaboutthosevibes@reddit

Are the side/main doors mechanically connected to the main gear shaft hydraulics or do they operate independently? It seemed like they closed exactly in sync with the gear retraction to the point that they are connected but I couldn’t tell.

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fdwyersd@reddit

had one of these fly over after presidential visit to SD omg that thing was big

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fbritt5@reddit

Cool video.

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Ok_Adhesiveness_4939@reddit

All I hear is TRANSFORMERS! MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!

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Abject-Badger-2394@reddit

Takes up less space. Simple yet complex design.

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DasbootTX@reddit

if that doesn't give you the good feels. you are inhuman

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a-rooster-illusion@reddit

I have a picture of me sitting in one as a kid, with the oxygen mask on.

My scoutmaster had a friend at… I think it’s Westover AFB in Massachusetts? And that friend was a C5 pilot

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KinksAreForKeds@reddit

And not one has had a mechanical failure in the landing gear, that we know of?

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epicenter69@reddit

There was at least one where the nose gear didn’t extend. They ended up landing it with the nose gear retracted. That pilot expertly landed on the main gear, keeping the nose up until it couldn’t stay up any longer. Surprisingly very little damage to the nose gear area of the plane.

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FMC_Speed@reddit

The Xb70 Valkyrie also had a fancy landing gear retraction mechanism

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EmotioneelKlootzak@reddit

If only there was a way to orient the camera that would also have fit the nose gear in frame...

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LassenDiscard@reddit

https://youtu.be/leCJ6cVAL_8?t=154

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DeFucifino@reddit

I f@cking hate vertical videos!

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cheetuzz@reddit

this is the video that should have been posted!

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Big_OOOO@reddit

That’s so well shot it has me wondering if it’s real.

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Killentyme55@reddit

Damn that's sexy.

My God I'm so weird...

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nomolosnitsuj@reddit

Yup. Got lost in that for far too long.

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WhalesForChina@reddit

Unfortunately that might require using both hands to operate the camera safely.

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darthnut@reddit

How are they getting such smooth tracking? I assume some of it's in post, but it's really great.

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OkBid71@reddit

Sony RX10 IV with stabilization +

Smooth tracking & stabilized camera head on a tripod

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AeroInsightMedia@reddit

Probably fusion in davinci resolve using the inteli tracker or planar tracker.

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KinksAreForKeds@reddit

It's more than likely not just your average cell phone camera, if I had to guess.

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epicenter69@reddit

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the C-5M engine sound. For my entire Air Force career, they had a distinct whine that was unmistakable. Now, they sound like any other plane. I understand the need for the engine upgrades, but I feel like a large part of their identity has been stripped.

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audiR8_@reddit

At least, we still have the unmistakable scream of the B-52!

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X-Bones_21@reddit

3,000 wheels?

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pinkfloyd4ever@reddit

I can see why these things are so high maintenance

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MountainAlive@reddit

Imagine if one of those got stuck sideways while trying to land?

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epicenter69@reddit

It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve touched the manual gear panel, but if my memory is correct, individual gear can be raised up to allow the other 3 MLG to touch down. That’s only if manual efforts to align the gear don’t work.

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npcbro85@reddit

That would suck for sure! Had it happen once, there are hydraulic over-rides that are accessible inside. Most of Fred’s gear problems are electrical/switch related in my experience.

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epicenter69@reddit

The real key in remembering the manual sequence was knowing exactly the movement the gear needed to make next. Once you were able to visualize it, it became second-nature.

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npcbro85@reddit

Yep! Dang green lights and blue lights every where!

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flightwatcher45@reddit

I would love to see it turn like this while taxiing lol.

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npcbro85@reddit

The aft MLG have a caster/swivel system that unlocks via a switch in the flt deck and re centers the gear using some massive actuators. If you watch this video, you can see the caster system actuate at 33 seconds.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99cm_5vZjK4&pp=0gcJCR4Bo7VqN5tD

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The9thPlague@reddit

I’d imagine it would just spin around like a broken shopping cart wheel.

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Sad-Fisherman-5199@reddit

There were only 2 times in my four years in the Air Force when I legitimately thought I was going to die. Both were when flying on a C-5

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Codex_Absurdum@reddit

Over-engineered cartwheels

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Carvair-98@reddit

Sometimes, there are things that I hear described, that have me immediately reaching for a spanner, like "Helicopter" or "Chrysler TC by Maserati".

This was that, but via visual observation. I imagine maintenance checks are as long as actual deployments 😵💫

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dharder9475@reddit

Beautiful!

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UnwillingHero22@reddit

Oh wow!

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Imaginary_Manner_556@reddit

That plane is carrying a Burger King

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Former_Salt_3763@reddit

The crazy thing is how me, at 47 years of age, still looks that that and thinks how complicated it is and how I could never understand how it all works.

In reality, a team of 5 engineers probably worked on one very specific part of the rear gear. Engineering is like army ants..everyone understands the goal but it takes multiple teams doing different things to make it all work.

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According2whoandwhat@reddit

Some mechanical engineer had a blast!

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Working-Reason-124@reddit

Beautiful machine

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NoAcanthocephala1168@reddit

Fake! Ain't no way that pig gets off the ground. Oink oink

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showMeYourPitties10@reddit

Is it called something like main gear 1r and main 2r?I only have experience in 121

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npcbro85@reddit

The mains are numbered 1 through 4. Odds on the pilots side, evens on the copilot side

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Virtual_Area8230@reddit

I've always wondered if they'd ever had to land with them stuck sideways.

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npcbro85@reddit

In my 17 years on them I’ve never seen that. We have had them get stuck at 90 degrees but you can override them to 0 degrees and lock them.

We had some nose gears that didn’t want to extend all the way a few years back though.

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BigFatModeraterFupa@reddit

airplanes have to be the coolest thing that human beings have ever invented.

it's crazy that only about 100 years ago, airplanes were wood and canvas with a little lawnmower engine strapped to it.

I am happy that i am living in a time of human history where airplanes exist

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DashJackson@reddit

These flew over the flourbluff highschool in corpus christi tx every once in a while. It was surreal. It looked impossible, like an office building hanging over your head.

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Messyfingers@reddit

The old TF39s REALLY made it more surreal. They had this weird ethereal whistling noise, that was just a bit different than even other older turbofans.

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Killentyme55@reddit

CCAD must be fed.

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Rhythmic1@reddit

Did they get new engines or something? I remember these sounding like high pitched buzz saws at full power.

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npcbro85@reddit

Yep, the new ones are CF-6. They don’t have the old scream of the TF-39s

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emvxl@reddit

The older models had TF39 engines and are probably the sound you’re talking about.

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Rook8811@reddit

I miss the old engines of these

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npcbro85@reddit

Me too man, me too. The raw sound those TF-39s made was very unique.

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nominalverticle@reddit

That is so cool

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pornborn@reddit

That’s a lot of wheels! I know it’s not as many as the AN-225 (RIP) but still. And I’ve never seen the gear retraction before - that was awesome. Like synchronized swimmers. Lol.

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krustyguy123@reddit

Fuck yeah!

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MemeEndevour@reddit

Crazy stuff. Surprised it’s not a 747 situation where the gear raising is staged to help out the hydraulics. That’s a lot of stuff to bring up all at once,

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Killentyme55@reddit

"Hold my MIL-PRF-5605".

- The C-5 Galaxy...probably.

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npcbro85@reddit

Haha yep. PRF 83282 though. Or at least it used to be. Haven’t worked FRED in 5 years now.

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npcbro85@reddit

They are on different systems. Nose and aft set of mains are system 1 forward set of mains is system 4. The demand on the hydraulics surprisingly isn’t too bad. Flaps/slats on the other hand always seemed to bog them down when operated off the Apu or ground cart.

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oldmanhockeylife@reddit

C-5's are the most brutally sexy cargo planes in the universe. I watched one take significant FOD (think large animal life) on take off and it kept on trucking like it had someplace to go. And the whine of the engines on take off----yeah. Second to none--Everyone within 20 miles knew it was going.

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