Lockheed 
Martin is preparing to begin flight testing the Air Force’s fourth C-5M Super Galaxy transport, company spokesman Chad Gibson told the Daily Report Thursday. This aircraft is the first C-5 being converted to the new “M” configuration at the company’s production line in Marietta, Ga. The previous three C-5Ms received the new engines and reliability enhancements that are the main upgrades in the M model during the program’s developmental work, before the modification line was established. Lockheed expects to deliver this airframe to the Air Force on Sept. 30. Two additional C-5s are on the line now, with slated delivery dates in February and mid-2011, respectively, Gibson said. One of the three C-5Ms already in USAF’s inventory recently achieved a 96 percent departure reliability rate while delivering “critical cargo” to troops in Afghanistan, according to a Lockheed Martin release. (See also USAF Comes to Scientist’ Rescue and Super Galaxy.)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…