Again, Messrs. Dunville and Olesen, I don't mean to turn this topic into another belonging at airliners.net, but I could not overlook when reviewing coverage of the recent Dignified Transfer at Dover AFB, that the C-5 remains in service with the USAF.
Of course, military aircraft hardly accumulate the flight hours and "cycles" (takeoff, landing, pressurizing) - the stuff that puts the greatest stress on an airframe - as do commercial aircraft, but those C-5 frames are pushing 50 years old. Of course, we should also note that the VC-25's that are used to fly Joe here and there were first used by GHWB (POTUS41), are pushing 36yo.
So, even with the absence of maintenance that I sure noted when traveling by rail South of the Border "many moons ago", those A-I's inaugurating what appears to be a Mextrak (so much for KCS and UP holding "Don't even think about such"), will solider on long after even Amtrak would have had them chopped up.
Finally, let me note I was stationed at Dover nineteen months '65-'67. The 436th Mortuary Squadron handled remains of Vietnam KIA's. Was there time for the Dignified Transfer? Uh, don't think so. Sorry but the coffins were simply forklifted off the aircraft; C-133's and 141's - along with civilian airlines known only to the Defense Department (
eg) - stacked some six high.