C-5 Galaxy tracker: every Lockheed C-5M Super Galaxy flying right now
The C-5 Galaxy is the largest aircraft the US Air Force flies: a transport that kneels to the ground, opens at both ends and swallows tanks, helicopters and whole outsized loads that nothing else in the fleet can carry. Many of its flights broadcast their position, so one is often on the map.
Government and military aircraft appear here only when they broadcast their position publicly over ADS-B. Many of their flights do not.
| Flight | Registration | Operator | Type | Altitude | Speed |
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Lockheed C-5M Super Galaxy at a glance
- First flight
- June 30, 1968
- Built
- 131, the last in 1989
- In service today
- 52 C-5Ms, every one of them a re-engined and modernized older airframe
- Where to see one
- Dover Air Force Base, Delaware; Travis Air Force Base, California; Lackland in Texas and Westover in Massachusetts
- Callsign to look for
- RCH ("Reach"), used by Air Mobility Command flights
What makes it a Galaxy
The C-5 was built in the 1960s to move the Army's biggest equipment by air: two M1 Abrams tanks, six Apache helicopters, or outsized loads like satellites and bridge sections that will not fit in a C-17. Its nose swings up and its tail opens, so vehicles can drive straight through, and the landing gear kneels to bring the cargo floor down to truck-bed height.
The fleet had a long history of reliability problems, which is why the Air Force rebuilt it. Between 2006 and 2018 Lockheed Martin gave 52 of the best airframes new General Electric CF6 engines, new avionics and dozens of smaller fixes. Those are the C-5M Super Galaxies flying today; the rest of the original 131 are retired, mostly in storage in Arizona.
Reading the map
C-5s fly for Air Mobility Command under the RCH callsign, the same as the C-17, so a flight shows up as "RCH" and a number. Typical routes run from Dover and Travis to Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific, often through Ramstein in Germany or bases in the Gulf. A C-5 on the map at an unusual airport usually means an outsized load: a helicopter fleet, a satellite or disaster-relief equipment.
Questions
Is the C-5 the biggest military aircraft in the world?
It is the largest aircraft in the US military. The Russian-built Antonov An-124 can carry a heavier load, and the single An-225 was larger still until it was destroyed in 2022. See the An-124 tracker for the Antonovs flying today.
How many C-5 Galaxies are still flying?
The Air Force operates 52 C-5M Super Galaxies, all converted from older C-5A, B and C airframes between 2006 and 2018. The live list above shows how many are broadcasting at this moment.
Why isn't an aircraft I know is flying on the map?
Positions come from volunteer ADS-B receivers, which only hear aircraft within roughly 200 nautical miles. Over oceans, deserts and parts of Africa and Asia there are few receivers, so an aircraft can vanish mid-flight and reappear near land. Military and some government aircraft also switch their transponders' public data off.
More live trackers
Positions from the adsb.lol volunteer ADS-B network (ODbL). Aircraft are shown only while a receiver can hear them.