Clad in a parka, snow pants, insulated boots, sweater, and thermal underwear, the crew chief stood off the nose of the C-5M monitoring the engine test. As the new 50,000-pound thrust CF6 engines on the Super Galaxy spooled up, the powerplants whipped the frost and snow on the ground into a frenzy and turned the -25 degree Fahrenheit air into the harshest of winds.

"We originally thought AMP would give pilots the same information they were used to seeing, but present it differently," says Lt. Col. Tim Hebel, the C-5 Avionics Modernization Program project officer at Dover AFB, Delaware. "We found that the upgrade gives them more tools in a new cockpit and this required a different flying technique and new regulations to use those tools. Pilots experience a learning curve, but once they learn AMP, they have a lot more capability. The difference between flying a C-5 AMP and a C-5 without AMP is like the difference between driving an old Beetle or driving a new Corvette."

What impresses onlookers most about the first fully modernized C-5M Super Galaxy strategic airlifter is not the twenty-two foot long, 300-pound, orange flight test instrumentation boom on the nose, though the structure is striking. It's not the new cargo compartment lighting, or the new auxiliary power units, or the nearly seventy other improvements made to the aircraft.

One of the most familiar characteristics of the C-5 Galaxy, its pterodactyl-like screech, will be gone in the next decade, replaced by the familiar, and muted, call of the big aluminum birds that flock around commercial airports.