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C-5A Galaxy transport, tail number 90013, touched down on the landing strip at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, after completing the final C-5 mission for Air Force Reserve Command’s 445th Airlift Wing. Two Wright-Patt fire trucks flanked the aircraft as it taxied back, giving it the traditional water cannon salute during the Sept. 28 finale to the wing’s six years of operating the massive airlifters. The aircraft flew touch and goes around the local area that day. The Reserve unit began transitioning early this year from the C-5A to the C-17 Globemaster III. The base is scheduled to receive its full complement of nine C-17s by the end of Fiscal 2012. (Includes Wright-Patt photo caption by SSgt. Robert Nelson)
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…