The landing gear is as wide as the plane is tall. When empty, Super Guppy tips the scales at 101,000 pounds and can carry a maximum payload of 52,000 pounds. It needs 7,000 to 8,000 feet of runway to get airborne when fully loaded. Without the plane, NASA would have to ship space station parts, which are built at plants throughout the country, by barge through the Panama Canal because they're too big to move by rail or truck. To load cargo, the crew first swings open the plane's nose about 110 degrees, like a really big, bulbous door.
Rails inside support the pallets as they're rolled into the plane.
Payload specialists make sure the cargo is centered and then bolted down so the load is not too far in back or in front, which would make the plane difficult or even impossible to fly. It's the responsibility of the plane's crew leader, Tom Gordon, to make sure Super Guppy is in top shape because a breakdown can mean a lengthy and expensive wait for parts. Using a torque wrench and ratchet wrench as big as baseball bats, Gordon demonstrated how relatively easy it is to open the plane up like a can of tuna. Ladders are attached to the walls for the crew to crawl up the side of the cargo bay and loosen bolts that separate the nose from the fuselage. Often, Gordon explained, it gets as hot as 130 degrees inside the cargo bay while on the ground, making it painful to hold on to the ladders.