The C-5 Galaxy line completed depot-level maintenance and returned all the aircraft to their operational units on-time for the fourth straight year, officials at Robins AFB, Ga., announced. “We keep improving our processes. … Realigning things so they flow together better,” Dave Nakayama, 559th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron director at Warner-Robins Air Logistics Complex, said in a release. The C-5 line completed programed depot maintenance on a total of 30 C-5s, and unscheduled, heavy maintenance on another 21 aircraft between Fiscal 2012 and FY15, according to the release. Technicians have shaved 140 days off the Galaxy’s average programmed depot maintenance process since 2011, completing aircraft within 280 days? on average. They aim to further reduce C-5 processing time to 220 days. “The repairs, overhauls, modifications, and upgrades we make here, all these keep the fleet operating as if they’re new,” said Nakayama. The C-5 fleet marked its highest aircraft availability rate in FY14 due in large part to depot efforts as well as the fleet’s shift to the more reliable C-5M Super Galaxy.
A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flew from Europe across the Middle East to the Persian Gulf on July 25 in a 32-hour flight, as conflicts continued to roil the area with U.S. troops coming under attack in Iraq and Syria on July 25 and July 26, U.S. officials told…