Every year at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, there are dazzling, sleek, sharp aircraft. NASA’s Super Guppy is not among them. But you might not find anything in Oshkosh this week that’s as cool.
Designed in the 1960s by Aero Spacelines Industries (ASI) and based on the Boeing C-97J Stratocruiser, the Super Guppy is one of the oddest-looking air-planes flying today, and NASA brought the only airworthy example to AirVenture.
“It’s probably the most interesting airplane I’ve ever flown,” NASA pilot Brett Pugsley said. “She flies how she looks. You put a control input in, and it takes a lit-tle while for her to respond. It’s got a little bit of a lag, which can lead to getting into some pilot-induced oscillations, definitely on the runway.”
The Super Guppy is designed to carry oversized cargo, leading to wild dimensions for the fuselage and a crazy look, kind of like a mutant oversized guppy fish that had a really big dinner. The cargo hold is 111 feet, 6 inches long and has a maximum height of 25 feet, 6 inches and a 25-foot diameter. Powered by four Allison T56 turboprop engines, the airplane has a maximum takeoff weight of 170,000 pounds and can carry a 48,000-pound pay-load, with a cruise speed of 290 mph at 25,000 feet. It has a hinged nose that opens 110 degrees, allowing for frontal cargo load-ing. Cargo is transported on pallets with a system of rails within the cargo hold.
NASA’s Super Guppy — officially a Super Guppy Turbine (SGT) — was acquired from Airbus in 1997. Initially, Aero Spacelines built the original Pregnant Guppy based on the KC-97, which was used to carry the second stage of the Saturn rocket for the Apollo program. ASI fol-lowed up with the Super Guppy in 1965, which they owned and operated until 1979, when NASA purchased it. Four upgraded Super Guppys, SGTs, were built by ASI and purchased by Airbus to ferry A300 fuselage sections before they were retired and NASA acquired SGT No. 4.
NASA’s Super Guppy is based in El Paso, Texas, and is used in support of the space program as well as by the Department of the Defense and government contractors to move aircraft and other large compo-nents. The Super Guppy is scheduled to be at AirVenture until Thursday morning.