The Super Guppy - Ugly, but Big, but Still Ugly

By Rob Russell

The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy Turbine is a large, wide-bodied four engine turboprop cargo aircraft used for transporting outsize cargo components. It was produced by Aero Spacelines. Five were built in two variants, both of which were colloquially referred to as the "Super Guppy".

The first Super Guppy, or "SG", was built directly from a retired USAF Boeing YC-97J Stratofreighter.. The fuselage was lengthened to 141 feet (43 m), and ballooned out to a maximum inside diameter of 25 ft (7.6 m), the length of the cargo compartment being 94 ft 6 in (28.8 m). The floor of the cargo compartment was still only 8 ft 9 in (2.7 m) wide, as necessitated by the use of the Stratocruiser fuselage. In addition to the fuselage modifications, the Super Guppy used Pratt & Whitney T-34-P-7WA turboprop engines for increased power and range, and modified wing and tail surfaces. All these alterations mean it could carry a load of 54,000 pounds (24,000 kg) and cruise at 300 mph (480 km/h).

After a month of tests, Super Guppy suffered a major structure failure, during a certification test flight fuselage on September 25, 1965. The particular flight required high speed dives. After starting a dive at 10,000 feet the upper fuselage collapsed. The plane had been carrying 30,000 pounds of borate in 100-pound sacks, which were damaged and spilled powder that temporarily blinded the crew. Thanks to the help of the chase plane - a DC-9, the crew was able to land on the dry bed of Rogers Dry Lake and save the aircraft. It was back to the drawing board and after that, the upper superstructure was redesigned and rebuilt at Edwards Air Force Base.

The second version was officially known as the Super Guppy Turbine (SGT), although the first Super Guppy also used turboprop engines. However, this variant used Allison 501-D22C engines. Unlike the previous Guppy, the main portion of its fuselage was constructed from scratch. By building from scratch, Aero Spacelines was able to significantly widen the floor of the cargo compartment to 13 ft (4 m). The overall cargo-compartment length was increased to 111 ft 6 in (34 m), and the much modified fuselage and engines allowed for a maximum load of 52,500 lb (23,800 kg). These design improvements, combined with a pressurized crew cabin that allowed for higher-altitude cruising, allowed the SGT to transport more cargo than its predecessors.

The SGT retained only the cockpit, wings, tail, and main landing gear of the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. The nose gear was taken from a Boeing 707 and rotated 180 degrees. This dropped the front of the aircraft slightly, levelling the cargo-bay floor and simplifying loading operations. One was acquired by Boeing, mainly to assist NASA in the transportation of rockets and rocket components.

In the early 1970s, two SGT aircraft were used by Airbus to transport parts from production facilities to the final assembly plant in Toulouse. These parts included parts of the fuselage, tails, rudders and even wing components. In 1982 and 1983, two additional Super Guppy Turbines were built by Union de Transports Aériens Industries in France after Airbus Industry bought the right to produce the aircraft. The four Super Guppies, were an integral part of Airbus and enabled Airbus to built their aircraft throughout Europe and then complete final assembly at one venue, were later replaced in this role by the Airbus Beluga, capable of carrying twice as much cargo by weight.

At the end of 2024, One Super Guppy remains in service with NASA. Three are on display and one was scrapped.

• Super Guppy N940NS (previously N1038V), serial number 52-2693, is on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum near Tucson, Arizona.

  

• Super Guppy Turbine F-BTGV (formerly N211AS), serial number 0001, was on static display at the former British Aviation Heritage Centre at the Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome. Due to component corrosion, the aircraft was broken up in December 2020 with the cockpit preserved by the South Wales Aviation Museum.

  

• Super Guppy Turbine F-BPPA (formerly N212AS), serial number 0002, is on static display at Aeroscopia near the Airbus factory at Toulouse–Blagnac Airport in France.

  

• Super Guppy Turbine F-GDSG, serial number 0003, is on static display near the Airbus factory at Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport in Germany.

  

• Super Guppy Turbine N941NA (formerly F-GEAI), serial number 0004, is still in service with NASA as a transport aircraft and is based at the El Paso International Airport.

  

Operators:

Airbus

Perhaps the most famous and best known operator of the Super Guppy. Crucial for the A300, A310, and A300-600 programs, addressing logistical challenges of building large jets and enabled then European Airbus to truly build an European jet. It established the concept of airlifting massive components. This was made possible by the entire nose section that could swing open 110 degrees for easy front-loading of huge cargo. 

Whilst many of the components were moved by road, the increasing success of the various models being built, was proving a logistical nightmare for Airbus. So Airbus took to the air. The Super Guppy was instrumental in making Airbus's collaborative, multi-national production system work by solving the "impossible" problem of moving enormous aircraft sections. It performed a vital function in the early days of Airbus. However, with Airbus expanding both models and production the Guppy became too small, too uneconomical as it was very expensive to operate and also not enough of them to do the work that needed to be done. It was replaced by the Beluga series of aircraft.

Boeing - NASA

Boeing, through Aero Spacelines, used the Super Guppy primarily to transport massive, outsized aerospace components for NASA's space programs, like the Apollo missions and the International Space Station (ISS), leveraging its huge, bulbous fuselage and hinged nose for loading huge parts like rocket stages and spacecraft sections that couldn't fit in other planes, making the Apollo program's success possible. The Super Guppy is the only airplane to carry a complete S-IVB stage, the third stage of the Saturn V rocket. It did so several times during the Apollo program.

General characteristics:

• Crew: 4

• Length: 143 ft 10 in (43.84 m)

• Wingspan: 156 ft 3 in (47.63 m)

• Height: 48 ft 6 in (14.78 m)

• Cargo bay dimensions: 111 ft × 25 ft × 25 ft (33.83 m × 7.62 m × 7.62 m)

• Wing area: 1,965 sq ft (182.6 m²)

• Empty weight: 101,500 lb (46,040 kg)

• Gross weight: 156,000 lb (70,760 kg) (54,500 lb/24,721 kg payload)

• Max takeoff weight: 170,000 lb (77,111 kg)

• Powerplant: 4 × Allison 501-D22C turboprop engines, 4,680 shp (3,490 kW) each

• Propellers: 4-bladed constant-speed fully-feathering propellers

Performance:

• Maximum speed: 250 kn (290 mph, 460 km/h)

• Cruise speed: 220 kn (250 mph, 410 km/h) economical cruise at 20,000 ft (6,096 m)

• Range: 1,734 nmi (1,995 mi, 3,211 km)

• Service ceiling: 25,000 ft (7,600 m) certified