 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2009) |
 | |
| Founded | 1960 |
|---|---|
| Founder | John M. Conroy |
| Defunct | 1968 |
| Products | |
Aero Spacelines Inc. was an American aircraft manufacturer from 1960 to 1968 that converted Boeing 377 Stratocruisers into the famous Guppy line of airplanes, re-engineered to transport oversized cargo such as space exploration vehicles.
Aero Spacelines was formed with only one customer in mind: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA needed to transport outsize cargo from manufacturing plants such as the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. These items were too large to be safely transported by rail or truck. Shipping by sea was time-consuming, expensive, and risky, with the danger of damaging the cargo on turbulent seas. But no aircraft of the day was large enough.
John M. "Jack" Conroy, a retired United States Air Force pilot, and Lee Mansdorf, an aircraft salesman and entrepreneur, formulated the Guppy concept one evening over dinner. They decided to create a company to manufacture outsized aircraft. Conroy hired Robert W. Lillibridge as vice president of manufacturing and engineering, and a team was assembled for the project. Financing was provided by venture capitalist William Ballon, a World War II combat veteran also from the Army Air Corps. In 1960, Aero Spacelines began working at Van Nuys Airport, California, to transform a Boeing 377 airliner into the Pregnant Guppy. [1]
NASA's Project Gemini made early use of the Pregnant Guppy to transport the first and second stages of Titan II GLV from the Martin Co. in Baltimore, Maryland, to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Subsequent versions of the Guppy series hauled the S-IVB, the third stage of the Saturn booster from California to Florida.[ citation needed ]
In 1967, Aero Spacelines encountered financial difficulties and was acquired by Unexcelled Inc. That corporation was sold to Tracor Aviation.[ citation needed ] Conroy organized a new company, Conroy Aircraft, which built more airplanes for transporting oversized cargo.[ citation needed ] By November 1968, NASA had paid Aero Spacelines $11,591,633 in contracts. [2] Conroy ceased operations in 1972.
As of March 2021, one Super Guppy was still in operation. NASA uses it to transport vehicles, and leases it to third parties when not in use. [3]
In early 2016, NASA used that aircraft to transport the main structure of Orion crew capsule, from its Michoud Manufacturing Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the capsule underwent its first uncrewed test flight aboard the Space Launch System rocket. [4] In November 2019, NASA used the aircraft to transport the Orion capsule from the Kennedy Space Center to the Mansfield Lahm Airport in Ohio for thermal and vacuum tests. [5]
Aero Spacelines produced three Guppy aircraft models.
The Airbus A300 is Airbus's first production aircraft and the world's first twin-engine, double-aisle wide-body airliner, developed and manufactured by Airbus from 1971 to 2007.
A wide-body aircraft, also known as a twin-aisle aircraft and in the largest cases as a jumbo jet, is an airliner with a fuselage wide enough to accommodate two passenger aisles with seven or more seats abreast. The typical fuselage diameter is 5 to 6 m. In the typical wide-body economy cabin, passengers are seated seven to ten abreast, allowing a total capacity of 200 to 850 passengers. Seven-abreast aircraft typically seat 160 to 260 passengers, eight-abreast 250 to 380, nine- and ten-abreast 350 to 480. The largest wide-body aircraft are over 6 m (20 ft) wide, and can accommodate up to eleven passengers abreast in high-density configurations.
The Airbus A300-600ST, or Beluga, is a specialised wide-body airliner used to transport aircraft parts and outsize cargoes. It received the official name of Super Transporter early on, but its nickname, after the beluga whale, which it resembles, gained popularity and has since been officially adopted.
The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy is a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft that is used for hauling outsize cargo components. It was the successor to the Pregnant Guppy, the first of the Guppy aircraft produced by Aero Spacelines. Five were built in two variants, both of which were colloquially referred to as the "Super Guppy".
The Aero Spacelines Mini Guppy is a large, wide-bodied, American cargo aircraft used for aerial transport of outsized cargo components. The Mini Guppy is one of the Guppy line of aircraft produced by Aero Spacelines, alongside the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy.
The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was a large long-range airliner developed from the C-97 Stratofreighter military transport, itself a derivative of the B-29 Superfortress. The Stratocruiser's first flight was on July 8, 1947. Its design was advanced for its day; its relatively innovative features included two passenger decks and a pressurized cabin. It could carry up to 100 passengers on the main deck plus 14 in the lower deck lounge; typical seating was for 63 or 84 passengers or 28 berthed and five seated passengers.
The Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter was a long-range heavy military cargo aircraft developed from the B-29 and B-50 bombers. Design work began in 1942, the first of three prototype XC-97s flew on 9 November 1944 and the first of six service-test YC-97s flew on 11 March 1947. All nine were based on the 24ST alloy structure and Wright R-3350 engines of the B-29, but with a larger-diameter fuselage upper lobe and they had the B-29 vertical tail with the gunner's position blanked off. The first of three heavily revised YC-97A incorporating the re-engineered wing, taller vertical tail and larger Pratt & Whitney R-4360 engines of the B-50 bomber, flew on 28 January 1948 and was the basis of the subsequent sole YC-97B, all production C-97s, KC-97s and civilian Stratocruiser aircraft. Between 1944 and 1958, 888 C-97s in several versions were built, 811 being KC-97 tankers. C-97s served in the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Some aircraft served as flying command posts for the Strategic Air Command, while others were modified for use in Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadrons (ARRS).
The maiden flight, also known as first flight, of an aircraft is the first occasion on which it leaves the ground under its own power. The same term is also used for the first launch of rockets.
A cargo aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of cargo rather than passengers. Such aircraft generally feature one or more large doors for loading cargo. Passenger amenities are removed or not installed, although there are usually basic comfort facilities for the crew such as a galley, lavatory, and bunks in larger planes. Freighters may be operated by civil passenger or cargo airlines, by private individuals, or by government agencies of individual countries such as the armed forces.
The Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy was a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft built in the United States and used for ferrying outsized cargo items, most notably components of NASA's Apollo program. The Pregnant Guppy was the first of the Guppy line of aircraft produced by Aero Spacelines. The design inspired later designs, such as the jet-powered Airbus Beluga and Boeing Dreamlifter.
The Conroy Skymonster (CL-44-0) is a 1960s United States specialized cargo aircraft based on the Canadair CL-44 freighter, with an outsize fuselage.
The Boeing Dreamlifter, officially the 747-400 Large Cargo Freighter (LCF), is a wide-body cargo aircraft modified extensively from the Boeing 747-400 airliner. With a volume of 65,000 cubic feet (1,840 m3) it can hold three times that of a 747-400F freighter. The outsized aircraft was designed to transport Boeing 787 Dreamliner parts between Italy, Japan, and the U.S., but has also flown medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conroy Aircraft was an American aircraft manufacturer founded by John M. Conroy in Goleta, California, in 1968 after he resigned as president of Aero Spacelines. The company imitated Aero Spacelines' success with its Guppy aircraft by converting a Canadair CL-44 to carry oversized cargo as the Conroy Skymonster.
On Mark Engineering was an American aircraft remanufacturing company established in 1954 at Van Nuys Airport in California. Its most significant products were rebuilding military surplus A-26 Invaders into executive transports—the Marketeer with an unpressurized fuselage and the Marksman with fuselage pressurization. On Mark converted a single B-26 into the YB-26K Prototype. After successful tests, that prototype was reconfigured with 39 other planes into the B-26K Counter-Invaders for counterinsurgency missions with the US Air Force. A total of 40 of the planes were produced. On Mark also undertook conversion work of a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser into the prototype Pregnant Guppy for Aero Spacelines.
John Michael Conroy was an American aviator and later businessman, whose company Aero Spacelines developed the Pregnant Guppy, Super Guppy, and Mini Guppy cargo aircraft. He later founded Conroy Aircraft and Specialized Aircraft in Santa Barbara, California.
The Conroy Virtus was a proposed American large transport aircraft intended to carry the Space Shuttle. Designed, beginning in 1974, by John M. Conroy of the Turbo-Three Corporation, it was to incorporate a pair of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress fuselages to form a new craft using existing parts for cost-savings. While the project was seriously considered, it proved impractically large and NASA chose to develop the Boeing 747–based Shuttle Carrier from surplus commercial aircraft instead.
Outsize cargo is a designation given to goods of unusually large size. This term is often applied to cargo which cannot fit on standardized transport devices such as skids (pallets) or containers. This includes military and other vehicles.
The Airbus BelugaXL (A330-743L) is a large transport aircraft based on the Airbus A330-200F built by Airbus to replace the original Airbus BelugaST to transport very large aircraft components, such as wings. The aircraft made its first flight on 19 July 2018, and received its type certification on 13 November 2019. The BelugaXL entered service with Airbus Transport on 9 January 2020.
The project to create the International Space Station required the utilization and/or construction of new and existing manufacturing facilities around the world, mostly in the United States and Europe. The agencies overseeing the manufacturing involved NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, JAXA, and the Canadian Space Agency. Hundreds of contractors working for the five space agencies were assigned the task of fabricating the modules, trusses, experiments and other hardware elements for the station.