C-5 cockpit moves into software support facility Published Jan. 22, 2010 By Staff Reports ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- A C-5 aircraft crashed at Dover AFB, Del. in April 2006, with all 17 aboard surviving. The aircraft broke in two with the nose of the aircraft containing the cockpit remaining in one piece. A decision was made to cut the cockpit out of the aircraft nose and ship it to Robins in one piece. Experts and engineers from Dover and Robins worked together to prepare the compartment for its trip to Robins. The compartment, commonly referred to as the aircraft's flight deck, presented the opportunity for the 402nd Software Support Group to incorporate it into their facility as a flight simulator to test avionics software. The primary advantage of the simulator is that it will allow the group to test software before putting it through a full flight test, according to Bob Zwitch, group director. "It's as close to perfect as we can get without going out there and flying in a flight test pattern," Zwitch said. The cockpit has been in storage since coming to Robins and Saturday the new simulator was lifted into position on a foundation addition to the software facility. "We are basically going to make a software integration lab specifically for a C-5 workload," Zwitch said.