[Ashrunner]

The design is looking great. The nose section looks perfect.

My first encounter with Fat Albert was on my birthday in 1970. The first visit of one to Elmendorf AFB in Alaska, caused a bit of a problem with us fuels troopers.

At the time, the aircraft could only be parked in one area and that area had no hydrant refueling capability. So we had to gas the C-5 with trucks, capable of pushing out 4,500 gallons at a time. Nine truckloads were required to fill it.

Our dispatcher sent out three of us and I was the third. When the first truck was done, it would depart and go to the "fill farm" and resupply, then get in line again. This went on until on the ninth trip, my third, that the flight engineer gave the all full signal.

We we pulled our trucks up the bird to refuel (the single-point receptacles were located in the bulge where the main gear were), we maneuvered our truck along the pilot's side of the fuselage towards the wing, then we would cut the wheel and aim the truck out of the way should it jump into gear (which happened once in a while). The path would take the truck under the wing between the two engines.

It amazed me as to how high the wing was and how large the engine intake was. As the refueling went on, I would stare up at the intake and listen to the fan blades turn, all the time shaking my head as to the size of the entire aircraft.

Not long after we finished refueling the aircraft, it began taxiing to the departure end of the runway. Our entire section went out to the porch to watch the aircraft take-off. To this day I still think I could have out run the C-5 when it finally lifted off. It looked like it was going so slow it would never get airborne.

The next day we were given marching orders...get a quick way to refuel the C-5 as quick as possible. The aircraft would be one of the aircraft the Combat Pacers would handle on the other side of the base.

I was transferred to that side of the base and helped set up a portable refueling system for the C-5 on the far side of the base. After that, the C-5 had minimum ground time, meaning it had to leave as soon as possible. The quickest we were able to turn the aircraft around was 48 minutes, comparable to the turn-around times of bases setup to handle the aircraft.

Years later on a hop from San Antonio to the San Fransisco area, a group of us travelers played a game of half-court basketball in the cargo bay of the bird. Had to hand it to the reservists who set that up in the belly of the beast. 8v)