Aero Spacelines Mini Guppy

The Aero Spacelines Mini Guppy is in the airfreighter civil intended for the transport of freight out-gauge. Two specimens only were built, which present substantial differences.

Development

Aero Spacelines was repurchased in 1967 by Unexcelled Corporation, which hoped to exploit a fleet of 6 commercially Guppies for out-gauge transport. Aero Spacelines thus realized for this purpose an intermediate version between B-377PG Pregnant Guppy and B-377SG Super Guppy used by NASA. This apparatus having to obtain a certification FAA, it was out of the question `to arrange' a fuselage over the fuselage of the Stratocruiser and a new fuselage was thus drawn, with a floor of 3,96 m broad and a compartment offering a useful diameter of 5,48 m constant out of 22,25 m for a working length of 27,9 Mr.

Two apparatuses

B-377MG Mini Guppy

It is still old a Clipper of Pan Am c/n 15967 which was used as a basis. One preserved of it the aerofoil, engines and gear landing included/understood, the lower part of the fuselage, the cockpit and the empennage. The fuselage was however lengthened of 5 m behind of the wing and 1,78 m in front of the wing by taking away of sections on two others Stratocruiser (c/n 15967 and 15947). The stabilizer was lengthened of 2 m in scale and a new center section of aerofoil was carried out, increasing the scale of 4,57 m and the wing surface of 20%. The apparatus having to be charged by the back, the part postpones was fixed at the fuselage by two hinges on the right and 17 hydraulic bolts allowed the fixing of the back point on the fuselage, supported during the operations on the ground by a twin wheel assembled on a leg with hydraulic raising. A crutch was also fixed under the fuselage tail section to avoid its swing during the operations of loading and unloading.

B-377MG Mini Guppy accomplished its first flight on May 24th, 1967. Baptized Spirit off Santa Barbara , it took off two days later for Philadelphia, there embarked material of exposure intended for Paris airshow and gained Paris. It was one of the large high-speed motorboats of the Salon of 1967, also carrying out a displacement with Toulouse in order to show with Southern Aviation and VAT the possibilities of such an apparatus to ensure the transport of elements of Concorde between Toulouse and Filton. The useful volume of the compartment was not sufficient for the European industrialists, but this presentation is probably not foreign with the choice which Airbus made a few years later by buying 4 Super Guppy.

In spite of some very noticed and largely mediatized transport, like that of boats, Aero Spacelines never made profitable its exploitation. The Mini Guppy was sold in 1974 with American Jet Industries and was resold in 1980 in Aero Union. D-registered, it finally was bought in 1988 by Erickson Sky Crane, undertaken of Oregon, and was used for the transport of heavy loads or helicopters as long as it was possible to get spare parts. It was finally yielded to the Tillamook Naval Air Station Museum in 1995, and there is always.

This apparatus thus made a career more discrete than the others Guppy of Aero Spacelines, but it is also a movie star. It appears at the beginning of the film Universal Soldier (with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren) left in 1992.

B-377MGT Mini Guppy Harnesses

With this second apparatus Aero Spacelines prepared the exit of the Super Guppy Turbine. The fuselage of this apparatus was certainly similar in dimensions with that of B-377MG , even if the compartment had a useful diameter of 6 m instead of 5,50 m, with a useful overall length of 31,4 Mr. But the engines Pratt & Whitney were replaced for the first time by propeller turbines Al 501-D22C of 4680 ch. Ce turbopropeller, used on the Lockheed Electra and P-3 Orion (which also provided the upper part of the cap-engine), were available in great quantity and made it possible to carry the payload for 28.575 kg. The 377MGT was not largest of Guppy but that having the payload largest. Another difference, the loading was not carried out by the back, but by the front one, the point before swivelling to 110° as on the Super Guppy.

Built starting from cells of C-97, single B-377MGT accomplished its first flight on March 13rd, 1970. Renamed Guppy 101 in the commercial documentation of Aero Spacelines, it was destroyed on accident on May 12th, 1970 with Edwards AFB, killing the 4 members of the crew of tests. This accident occurred during a takeoff on 3 engines during the tests of certification to the standard FAR Part 25. An accident which had fatal consequences on the attempts at marketing of the Mini Guppy .

External bond

(in) http://www.allaboutguppys.com/

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