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Westover Air Base Now Home To 8 C-5Ms As Last Of Upgraded Aircraft Arrives

Super Galaxy jets lined up on the tarmac
Westover Air Reserve Base

      A major aircraft modernization by the U.S. Air Force wrapped up Thursday at an air base in western Massachusetts.

      A C-5M Super Galaxy landed at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee -- one of 52 of the largest planes built in this country to undergo a major upgrade at a cost of $720 million per aircraft.

      As base spokesman Senior Master Sgt. Andrew Biscoe observed when the first of the new models arrived in June 2017, the improvements include newer and quieter engines.

      "They are remarkably quieter airplanes and much more fuel-efficient," said Biscoe.

      The project to upgrade the Air Force’s fleet of giant cargo planes began in 2015. 

            Budget cuts reduced from 16 to 8 the number of aircraft assigned to Westover.

       Because the new engines are more fuel-efficient, the planes can carry larger, heavier loads.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.