Airbus’s fleet of Super Guppies
How parts of Airbus airplanes ended up being carried by oversized Boeing propliners
Like many other stories, this one could begin with once upon a time. Well, once upon a time in the late-1960s, early-1970s, a group of five countries in Europe (France, Germany, Spain, UK and Netherlands) decided to create a widebody airplane to compete with the American rivals of the time (Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed) and take a share of at least 25% of the market of airplanes of that kind. It was really the very first project done by European countries, which those five countries cooperate: The Airbus A300.
The A300 had parts which originated from the plants on those countries, dispersed from thousands of kilometres from the Airbus final assembly in Toulouse, which created a problem: those parts for the A300 were too big for being carried by rail, like Boeing and Lockheed did at the time — They were complete sections built by the factories located in the countries which were partners of the project. For example, Britain built the wings of the A300, Germany built the aft and forward sections of the airplane, and Spain built the tail section of the A300. So, Airbus decided to use a aircraft for carrying those parts to the Airbus’s Final Assembly Line in Toulouse. Airbus chose the Supper Guppy, built by Aero Spacelines, which were used by NASA to ferry rocket parts, and it was based on the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser propliner.
These two aiplanes didn’t arrived at the time for the construction of the first Airbus A300, which those parts had to be carried by sea and road. Although that fact, they arrived in time for the remaining of the A300 project. The first Supper Guppy converted for Airbus flown in 24 August 1970 and was delivered in 1971, one year after the delivery of the first parts for the first Airbus A300, delivered between 1970 and 1971 (the A300 made its maiden flight on 28 October 1972). The second Super Guppy for Airbus made its first flight on 24 August 1972, with delivery in 1973. At the time, Aero Spacelines was in dire straits — much because, as I think, of the end of the NASA’s Apollo program which ended in 1972. Airbus ended up building the third and the fourth Super Guppies ordered by the company to Aero Spacelines, at the time when the A300 production stepped up. Aero Spacelines did the sub-assemblies of those Super Guppies which were completed in Airbus’s Toulouse plant.
The third Super Guppy made its maiden flight in 1979 and the final one in 1980. The four Super Guppies were used by Airbus initially to carry parts for the A300 from the suppliers located in the partner countries of the project to the Airbus’s FAL in Toulouse, on a service called Airbus SkyLink, but the airplanes started to be used to carry parts for another projects from Airbus: The Airbus A310, which initially was called A300B10, began being produced in 1978, with the construction of the specific parts occurring between 1978 and 1980, and delivered by these Super Guppies right on that year. The A310 made its maiden flight in 1982.
The Super Guppies carried also parts for the Airbus A300–600, the more mature version of the Airbus A300, which made its first flight in 1983. They also carried parts for the Airbus aircraft which followed the A300 and the A310 — The A320, the first narrowbody of Airbus, with maiden flight done in 1987, the A330, the spiritual replacement of the A300 and the very first aircraft to being able, in my opinion, of conquering a decent market share against proposals of Boeing (the 767) and McDonnell Douglas (the MD-11), the A340–200 and A340–300, two aircraft with 4 engines, destinated for long haul (while the twin-engined A330 was destinated to medium-to-long haul flights).
But operating the Super Guppies weren’t cheap, because of the high consumption of the engines of those aircraft (those were propellers), and the cost of overall use were higher than the use of sea and land transportation. Boeing, in the late 1970s (while the Airbus vs Boeing rivalry started to heat up) criticized the Airbus SkyLink program because of that fact. Airbus responded with a map to show the distances flown by the Super Guppies was in fact shorter than the distances travelled by ships and trains to Boeing’s plant in Seattle. However, because of the fact that they were costly to run, Airbus decided to plan a suitable replacement for them. Ironically, the replacement was based on the A300, the very first Airbus.
So, in 1991, Airbus decided to develop and build a replacement for the Super Guppy, which as I said, was based on the Airbus A300. A pre-design was conducted by SATIC (Super Airbus Transport International), a joint venture between Aérospatiale and DASA, the two biggest partners in the Airbus partnership, between 1991 and 1992. The parts for the A300–600ST (the official name for the Airbus Beluga) were provided by 15 companies, including CASA, from Spain (upper fuselage), Dornier, from Germany (hydraulic system) and Sogerma (in France) made the final assembly work. The construction of the first Airbus Beluga started in 1992, with the maiden flight made in September 1994.
Those were not a like-for-like replacement, since the Belugas were more efficient and more faster than the Super Guppies which the Belugas intended to replace. But the plan of replacing the Super Guppies was in march: In 1996, the Super Guppy number #1, the F-BTGV, was retired and resides nowadays in Bruntingthorpe, UK, at the British Aviation Heritage Museum. The number #2, the F-BPPA, was also retired in 1996, and is on static display in the Musée Aeronautique Aeroscopia, in Toulouse, France — where is located also the Airbus plant (in the same Toulouse-Blagnac Airport). The Super Guppy #3 is now in Germany, at the Deutsche Airbus facility in Hamburg, and it was retired in 1997, one year after the retirement of the two first Super Guppies. The 4th Super Guppy still flies today, but for NASA, as the N941NA, formerly F-GEAI, and it was transferred in 1997 as a exchange for delivery for components from the European Space Agency (another cooperation program between many of the EU members) to the ISS Space Station program. The N941NA currently transports launch payloads.
It is now clear that for two decades, Airbus aircraft were built by parts delivered by old Boeing propliners, modified by Aero Spacelines and Airbus itself, which parts travelled from the countries which were (and still are) partners of the very first European cooperation project, which resulted in one of the most formidable Boeing’s rivals of all time.
Sources:
JP Santiago — How a Lot of Airbus Jets were born on Boeing wings, post of 21 July 2015, consulted on 29 May 2017 (http://www.tailsthroughtime.com/2015/07/how-lot-of-airbus-jets-were-born-on.html)
Wikipedia, Aero Spacelines Super Guppy, last edit of 22 May 2017, consulted 29 May 2017 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy)
Wikipedia, Airbus Beluga, last edit of 23 May 2017, consulted 29 May 2017 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga)
YouTube video, A300: Birth of a Saga — Episode 2: Towards first takeoff, posted by Airbus Aircraft, posted on 12 November 2010 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhjSI405na8)
This story was about the legendary Boeing airplanes which carried the parts of Airbus aircraft for the first two decades of the very first European industrial cooperation program. Please follow me on Twitter (@O530CarrisPT is my username).
