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B377PG Super Guppy

After replacement of its landing gear at NASA Dryden, NASA's Super Guppy Turbine cargo plane takes off from Edwards AFB to return to the Johnson Space Center.

 
Photo Number: EC05-0091-59
Photo Date: May 5, 2005
 
Formats: 640x623 JPEG Image (221 KBytes)
1280x1246 JPEG Image (874 KBytes)
2990x2910 JPEG Image (4786 KBytes)
 
Photo
Description:
After replacement of its landing gear at NASA Dryden, NASA's Super Guppy Turbine cargo plane takes off from Edwards AFB to return to the Johnson Space Center.
 
Project
Description:
The various Guppies were modified from 1940's and 50's-vintage Boeing Model 377 and C-97 Stratocruiser airframes by Aero Spacelines, Inc., which operated the aircraft for NASA. NASA's Flight Research Center assisted in certification testing of the first Super Guppy in 1962. One of the turboprop-powered Super Guppies, built up from a YC-97J airframe, last appeared at Dryden in May, 1976 when it was used to transport the HL-10 and X-24B lifting bodies from Dryden to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

NASA's present Super Guppy Turbine, the fourth and last example of the final version, first flew in its outsized form in 1980. It and its three sister ships were built in the 1970s for Europe's Airbus Industrie to ferry outsized structures for Airbus jetliners to the final assembly plant in Toulouse, France. It later was acquired by the European Space Agency, and then acquired by NASA in late 1997 for transport of large structures for the International Space Station to the launch site. It replaced the earlier-model Super Guppy, which has been retired and is used for spare parts. NASA's Super Guppy Turbine carries NASA registration number N941NA, and is based at Ellington Field near the Johnson Space Center.

 
NASA Photo by: Tony Landis
 
Keywords: Super Guppy, Johnson Space Center, landing gear, cargo plane
 


Last Modified: May 10, 2005
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