You don't here much of FRED on this board so this might help someone who is in UPT.This was off on another forum.
I got my C5 assignemnt to the west coast 2 years ago. It was my third choice after C-21 overseas and C-17 McChord. For the amount of bad press Freddy gets, it's actually a pretty good deal. For one you don't deploy. The infastructure required to keep Freddy flying and the fact that it has a huge range allows it to fly out of home station downrange and back in 2-3 days. No staying in tents, the per diem is great, and crews stay nice places (with the exception of Moron which sort of sucks). Also, Freddy tends to only break in non-crappy locations. The mission is neat and the fact that it only fits at a given amount of airports, it keeps you out of some god forsaken locations. The reason why you are probably not seeing that many Freddies in drops is because of the plans that are being arranged for the airplane. There are in the process of sending quite a few to the guard / reserve but those numbers are still being worked out. Also, at least in the West coast the two c5 squadrons are merging into 1 to make room for Barney (c-17) moving in next year. That means that the one squadron will be overmanned with c-5 pilots based on the number of Freddies they retain.
With the modifications coming down the line, including a new all glass cockpit, and new engines, Freddy will stay out of the bottom of people dream sheets. By the way... I was 5 out 13 in my class.
