C-5M Super Galaxy
ICAO C5MThe largest aircraft the US Air Force flies. Only a few dozen exist and rarely more than a handful are airborne at once — see which ones are up now.
Flying right now
Live · 30sAirframe
- Manufacturer
- Lockheed Martin
- Role
- Strategic airlift
- Class
- L4J — Landplane, 4 jet engines
- Crew
- 7 — two pilots, two flight engineers, three loadmasters
- First flight
- 30 June 1968 as the C-5A; June 2006 as the re-engined M
- In service
- 1970
Operators airborne
About the C-5M Super Galaxy
The C-5 has been in service since 1970, and the M is the same airframe with new engines, a new cockpit and roughly thirty years added to its life. Fifty-two were converted; that is the entire fleet, so the type is genuinely rare on a feed even though each sighting is unmistakable.
It loads through both ends — the nose visor swings up and the whole front of the aircraft opens — which is why it still carries things nothing else can. That capability is also why a C-5 movement often means something specific is being moved, rather than routine pallet freight.
Because so few exist, this page will regularly show one or two airborne, and sometimes none. That is the normal state of the fleet, not a gap in the data.
Callsign prefixes
- RCH
- Reach — US Air Mobility Command, effectively all C-5 traffic
How to recognise it
- —Enormous: a 68 metre wingspan, with the four engines set well outboard.
- —T-tail and high wing like a C-17, but the fuselage is long and slab-sided rather than stubby, and the nose is blunt.
- —Twenty-eight wheels. If you can see the gear, nothing else looks like it.
Common questions
+ How many C-5s are there?
Fifty-two C-5Ms, all flown by the US Air Force. No other country operates the type and none have been built since 1989, so the fleet only shrinks.
+ Is the C-5 bigger than the C-17?
Considerably. The C-5 carries roughly twice the payload and has about a third more wingspan. The C-17 trades that for the ability to use short and unpaved runways, which the C-5 cannot.
+ Why are so few C-5s ever airborne?
With fifty-two airframes total, and maintenance, training and ground time accounting for most of them, a handful in the air at any moment is a healthy fleet. Seeing zero for a few hours is unremarkable.