First off, I want to thank the Midland Development Corporation for finally posting their approved meeting minutes on their website. Progress is progress, and it deserves to be acknowledged.

Now to the title of this entry, which comes from the Approved April 24, 2009 Minutes of the MDC:

Mr. Hatley stated that Lockheed Martin has contacted Mr. Easterly to bring a C5 Galaxy, the largest airplane in the fleet, to Midland International Airport where it will conduct a three-year retrofit on the plane. Lockheed selected MIA due to the fact that the runway and ramp can handle a plane of its size and weight.

All the quotes in the media about the AMI hangar, going to the MRO conference, and ambiguous references to the size of planes our runways and ramps can handle don't quite measure up to the specifics reported in the MDC minutes. The way the minutes read, it seems like a done deal.

If the C5 retrofit is a reality, I'm glad to see all that FAA grant money, local airport bonds and PFC charges are contributing to the marketability of our local airport. For me the jury is still out on how effective the MDC was in this deal, seems Lockheed Martin called up and said, we need a place to park a plane and work on it and your site meets our requirements.

I wonder if they even asked for ED money?