The 433rd Airlift Wing (Air Force Reserve Command), nicknamed the Alamo Wing, runs its Maintenance Qualification Training Program in a dedicated VR lab at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. The 433rd Maintenance Group's 433rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron uses the program to train crew chiefs and aero repair journeymen on the C-5M Super Galaxy, in classes of roughly eight to ten students. Trainees wear HTC Vive Pro headsets and work in software the lab's own wall display brands as Virtual Hangar, Mass Virtual's maintenance-training product; neither the headset nor the software is named in the wing's release, and both are identified from branding visible in its release photographs, one of which shows a C-5M aircraft egress module on screen. At the time of the release the programme was running its third class, which began in mid-August 2026.
Tracking a recent class of nine students, lead instructor Tech. Sgt. Martin Calles found the unit saved more than $152,000 in fuel and equipment costs over 72 academic days by practising tasks in the virtual world instead of on a running aircraft, and projected well over $500,000 across a full year. Separately, the programme's most recent class graduated two weeks ahead of schedule, returning flight-line-ready maintainers to their units early. The course has also been used to accelerate qualification for five Air Reserve Technicians transitioning to the C-5 from fighter airframes, and for non-maintenance multi-capable Airmen, including medical and planning specialists and newly commissioned officers, learning flight-line safety and ground operations. Active-duty maintainers from the 515th Air Mobility Operations Wing at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, have travelled to San Antonio to train on the system, and other Air Force Reserve Command C-5 wings have expressed interest in sending Airmen. The lab is run by instructors who split their time with primary flight-line duties rather than by dedicated staff, which wing leadership names as the main constraint on the programme.
