Boy you got that right. I had taken a convertable out for a test drive after class about 4 PM I was returning to my training center, and I saw a C 5 on base. I pulled over, lowered the top, reclined the seat and watched the sky go grey.
Wow. Just Wow.
Aluminum overcast is a perfect description.
When they were building F-117 @ Lockheed Burbank every month or so a C 5 would land at Burbank in the middle of the night. It would taxi to a Lockheed building. Screens would be errected. About 80 minutes later it would take off.
Afgter it was all over it turns out they were taking the F-117s out of Burbank in the belly of a C 5 all of this timed to happen between Russian satellite passes.
Yeah , everytime I had seen one , it was usually a static display at various airshows in southern ontario, but I had never actually seen one fly in the wild , up until about maybe 8 years ago.
Then as I was exiting the coffee shop heading to the car , I looked up and there it was , banking slowly away from pearson international airport, wow.
That plane could probably almost be concidered the ninth wonder of the world.
Declan
Upon seeing more pics, there is no question that if this was a civilian jetliner it would be repaired. Boeing has fixed worse than this folks. (I only refer to Boeing instead of Lockheed due to my long term association with them.)
Given the particular model of military aircraft however, I can’t see the Pentagon getting this fixed.
I like C5s for travel. They usually have 73 spacious, airline-type seats on the upper deck (the bulge just in front of the tail) so they are much nicer than other U.S. military cargo planes to travel in as a passenger. But good gosh, are they unreliable! I think it’s safe to say that less than two-thirds of all C5 missions leave on time. One of the most frequently heard phrases at Air Mobility Command (AMC) terminals around the world is, “The plane is broke” refering to a C5.
According to an article in The Officer posted at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBY/is_4_80/ai_n6120724
"Current Mission Capable (MC) rates for C5-A and C5-B aircraft are 63.5 percent and 73.8 percent, respectively. In fact, during the last four years, because of low C-5 MC rates, AMC has had to assign two C-5s against many higher-priority missions to better ensure reliability and/or on-time mission accomplishment.
"AMC is addressing this critical capability shortfall with two major C-5 modernization efforts: the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) and the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program (RERP). AMP replaces all high-failure and unsupportable avionics and flight instrument systems on the C-5 fleet. This replacement makes the C-5 compatible with international standards required for flight today, as well as in tomorrow’s increasingly restrictive Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) airspace.
"RERP will replace engines and pylons and upgrade the aircraft’s landing gear, environmental control system, and auxiliary power units–the C-5’s most unreliable systems. "
Despite the fact that the one that crash had already been AMPed, I think it will go for parts.
Do you have an example of a civilian airliner that was damaged this badly and repaired? Other than something like a Constellation that was restored for historical purposes?
This thing looks totalled to me. Lots to salvage, of course. But I don’t see that airframe ever flying again.
Asked baby bro today about salvaging the plane and he laughed and laughed. The airframes are inspected after long flights around the doorframes and hatches to check for anything that might have happened during uneventful flights–having scattered itself into big pieces across the countryside is a definite disqualifier for an airframe. I don’t know about salvaging parts after the investigation is completed, suppose it’s possible, but it’s not their priority now.
Theories are running rampant up at Stewart and a couple of planes in the exact same class as the one that went down are grounded until they figure it out, but the rest of the big birds are clear to fly.
A much cooler picture of the AN225 
There have been airliners that were permanently grounded simply because they flew threw heavy turbulence and showed signs of airframe stress above limits.
er, “flew through”.