A pair of M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks from the US Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland sit loaded in the cargo compartment of a C-5M Super Galaxy at Dover AFB, Delaware, on 15 November 2011. Each of the tanks weighs more than sixty-seven tons and the C-5 is the only US military airlifter that can carry that much cargo weight. The modernized version of the C-5, the Super Galaxy has more than seventy improvements over the legacy C-5 aircraft, including new 50,000 pound thrust GE F138 engines providing twenty-two percent more thrust and cutting climb time in half. The new lighting in the C-5M cargo compartment improves safety when ground crews are loading and offloading cargo.
