Photo: Airbus Skylink.

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Seen by Jason F. on June 15 2010:

Airbus Skylink.

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16 comments so far

Saverio Mondelli 15 Jun 10

Yep, they used to use this bad boy to transport parts. It’s actually (ironically) a modified boeing plane. Not sure if that’s 100% right though.

mikhailov 15 Jun 10

Skylink powered by Airbus? :)

Keith 15 Jun 10

Check our airliners.net for more on the Super Guppy…

cmi 15 Jun 10

or check wikipedia :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guppy_(disambiguation)

Stefan Upmeier zu Belzen 15 Jun 10

This is the result of designing european airplane production by national intrests.

Stefan Upmeier zu Belzen 15 Jun 10

... and finally they changed the name from guppy to beluga ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga

Nick 15 Jun 10

My initial thought is a disaster waiting to happen.

Anonymous Coward 15 Jun 10

Nick: Your initial thought was wrong. Never crashed. No disasters. Makes you rethink your assumptions, eh?

James 15 Jun 10

@Anonymous Well there’s no need to be an asshole about it.

Florian 15 Jun 10

The Guppy is now… a Beluga :

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Airbus-Industrie/Airbus-A300B4-608ST-Super/1664881/

John Beckett 15 Jun 10

Now who wants to bet that you could fit more economy class seats in that thing than in an A380 ? :)

John Beckett 15 Jun 10

@ Saverio: I looked it up out of interest, and the original Super Guppies were based on a Boeing 377, but the current one (the ‘Beluga’) is in fact based on an Airbus A300 .

And I’m with Nick that at first glance you wonder how the thing can fly, even though we all obviously know that it can.

Anonymous Coward 15 Jun 10

@John —seats?! Shoot, stack ‘em like cordwood…

Mark 15 Jun 10

Years ago, I worked at NASA in Houston and actually saw one of these bad boys coming in for a landing at Ellington Field. People were pulled off all over the freeway just to gawk. It was awesome to watch.

As far as flying capability though, I’ve never been able to fathom just how the 747 which piggy backs the Shuttle even gets off the ground. Talk about a talented pilot with a steady hand.