How Do You Know a C-5 Galaxy Has Landed Gear-Up?

C-5 touching down

We were chatting today about stories from the past and I recalled a time when I was stationed at Mather AFB, Sacramento, California.  Just down interstate 80, towards San Francisco, was Travis AFB.  At Travis they had C-5's and C-141 Starlifters.

One day as we were getting ready for a flight a friend came in and asked if I had heard the news about the C-5 accident.  I hadn't so he went on to tell me about it.  The C-5 is a very big airplane and there had always been this joke.  "How do you know when your C-5 has landed gear up?"  the answer was "It takes mil-power to taxi!" (Mil-power is short for military power and it is roughly equal to full power +)

The night before; a crew was practicing approaches to improve their proficiency in approaches and landings.  They were scheduled for 30 approaches.  Apparently they flew 29 of them just right.  On the last landing of the night, the one that was to end the mission they forgot to put the landing gear down.

As they touched down, sparks started to fly from where the aircraft was scraping along the runway.  The tower called out they had appeared to have a wheel fire so they put the engines in idle, and started to apply brakes to stop quickly so the fire trucks could get to them.  It was about that time, as the airplane started to slide off the side of the runway they realized the brakes weren't working (because the wheels were still in the wheel well), and they figured out they had forgotten to lower them.

I don't think either of the pilots flew C-5s again after that little mistake.  But it did finally provide the definitive answer to the age old question. "How do you know you've landed your C-5 with the gear up?  Differential braking has no affect!"