An idea over dinner

NASA had a problem in the early 1960s: rocket stages built in New Orleans, Baltimore and California were too big for rail or road, and shipping them by sea to Cape Canaveral was slow and risky. Jack Conroy, a retired Air Force pilot, and Lee Mansdorf, an aircraft salesman, came up with the answer one evening over dinner: take an old airliner and blow its fuselage up like a balloon. With venture capital from William Ballon, Aero Spacelines began work at Van Nuys in 1960 on a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser that became the Pregnant Guppy.

Rockets in a balloon

The Pregnant Guppy first flew on 19 September 1962 and carried Titan II stages for Project Gemini. The Super Guppy, built from a YC-97J and first flown on 31 August 1965, had a cargo hold 25 feet across and hauled Saturn S-IVB third stages for Apollo. The Mini Guppy of 1967 followed. By November 1968 NASA had paid the company more than $11.5 million. In 1965 the firm was sold to Unexcelled, Inc., an unlikely parent whose other interests included discount stores and meatpacking equipment. Conroy left in 1967 and the former Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston took over.

From Apollo to Airbus

The Super Guppy Turbine, with an all-new wider fuselage, found its true calling in Europe: in the early 1970s two carried Airbus sections to Toulouse, and Airbus bought the rights to build two more in France in 1982 and 1983. Their successors, the Beluga and Boeing’s Dreamlifter, follow the Guppy formula. Tracor bought Aero Spacelines in 1981 and dropped the name. One Super Guppy still flies for NASA, carrying Orion capsules.

Fabrikalar

• Van Nuys Airport · Van Nuys, California — Pregnant Guppy conversion from 1960

İnsanlar

• Jack Conroy · co-founder — Later built the CL-44-based Conroy Skymonster
• Lee Mansdorf · co-founder
• Tex Johnston · company head from 1968 — Former Boeing test pilot