C-141B

The museum's C-141B was the last C-141 stationed at Dover AFT, Delaware. In 1973, television audiences watched a C-141 bring home POWs released by Hanoi, and C-141s also dropped U.S. paratroopers on Panama in 1989, but the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter's main job was carrying cargo rather than people. From the mid-1960s to the 90s, it served as the workhorse of the air mobility fleet, hauling supplies to Vietnam in the 1960s. The aircraft proved to bulk out before it massed out, so additional lift capacity often went unused because the cargo hold filled first. In the 1970s, Lockheed won a contract to stretch the two hundred sixty-three-plane fleet by twenty-three feet four inches and add an air refueling receptacle. The lengthened version, known as the C-141B, first flew on 24 March 1977 and entered service two years later. These improvements gave the Starlifter global reach and made it a familiar sight almost everywhere. It remained in service for almost forty years until the USAF withdrew the C-141 on 5 May 2006 and replaced it with the C-17 Globemaster III.

Dover, Delaware · United States