With a size and body more reminiscent of a whale than a tiny aquarium fish, NASA's Super Guppy jet made a rare stop at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on Dec. 10, drawing a crowd of spectators and photographers.
The massive, oddly-shaped cargo plane touched down in Mesa for about an hour on its way from Long Beach, Calif. The jet was carrying a 'large wing part' headed to Langley Field in Virginia, airport officials said.
'This is absolutely amazing,' San Tan Valley resident Kristen Young said shortly after the aircraft landed at around 11:30 a.m. 'It's huge. I wasn't expecting it to be this big.'
Young and several other moms from the Queen Creek Stroller Strides club brought their toddlers to the airport for an up-close glimpse of the jet. The group often visits the the airport for picnics while watching planes come in.
NASA's Guppy jets were developed in 1962 and played an instrumental role in support of the agency's Apollo program, which took the first humans to the moon in 1969.
The Super Guppy that landed at Gateway Airport is the last of its kind still in use, while several others are on display around the world. This was the jet's second visit to Mesa in the last 20 years, having also landed here last March.
Astronaut and Super Guppy pilot Greg Johnson said the jet is capable of carrying unusually tall objects with a high center of gravity, meaning he has to avoid sharp turns that might topple the cargo.
'You have to be very careful, so you don't do really high-banked turns,' said Johnson, whose NASA experience includes 13 days in space on board Atlantis during the final Hubble servicing mission in May 2009.
The Super Guppy often draws crowds as it makes stops during cross-country trips, Johnson said.
'We like to say when you take the Guppy on a trip across the U.S., it's a happening. People are just drawn to it,' he said.
The plane isn't particularly fast, lumbering along at about 250 miles per hour, Johnson said. It can carry heavy payloads, including small airplanes.
The Super Guppy is about two-thirds the size of a Boeing 747 and has a large wheelbase that prevents it from taxiing, Johnson said. It weighs about 171,000 pounds and can carry about 40,000 pounds of gas, he said.
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