MANSFIELD, Ohio – The Super Guppy landed at Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport just before noon Tuesday, unloading two pieces of equipment that will be taken to Sandusky via tractor-trailer.
It was the first of many visits the giant, guppy-shaped cargo plane will make to the airport. Lahm is serving as a hub for transporting equipment and tools used in conjunction with the Mars-bound Orion spacecraft to NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky through 2021.
Super Guppy Project Manager and Flight Engineer David Elliott said the plane brought a stack stand and service module interface adapter ring from the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It was about a three-hour flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to Mansfield, he added.
“The ring on top is actually a piece that’s going to connect to the service module that’s coming from the ESA (European Space Agency) in Europe,” Elliott said. “And that bottom part, I think, is just part of the tooling that they need to put everything together.
“So at the Plum Brook facility, they’re going to be connecting the crew module, the service module, all the fairings that go with it – they’re going to be connecting all that together and going to be doing a bunch of tests and analysis on that equipment.”
Once complete, he said the assembly will be loaded into the Guppy and taken back to Kennedy Space Center for launch.
According to previous reports, Orion is scheduled for unmanned flights in 2017 and 2021.
“Mansfield Lahm Airport is probably the best option for us to bring things in and out,” Elliott said. “A lot of this stuff is just far too big to be moving across country on a truck, so that’s where the Guppy comes in.”
Elliott’s crew had three choices for a transportation hub – Cleveland, Toledo, or Mansfield. He said Mansfield has the clearest route to Plum Brook.
When asked how it was to fly the massive plane, which has a cargo area 25 feet in diameter and 111 feet long, he said it is slow and sluggish.
“There’s a lot of lag in the input – you kind of give it a turn and it takes a second before it starts to roll,” he said. “Then you’ve got to bring it out about a second before you want to because it’s going to take a minute to correct itself.”
The Guppy also is affected by wind, Elliott said.
“It’s like a moving truck in the sky,” he said. “We don’t fly fast, and we don’t fly high, but we do get over the road, which is all we need to do.”
The Super Guppy landed and parked in front of the Subway restaurant at the airport, giving hundreds of onlookers an up-close view of the plane.
Mansfield Mayor Tim Theaker and state Rep. Mark Romanchuk (R-Ontario) got a VIP tour of the Guppy shortly after it landed.
“It just goes to show us how important this airport is – not just for the Mansfield area but certainly north central Ohio and even the nation,” Romanchuk said.
To describe the inside of the plane, he said it was “voluminous.”
“It’s very impressive inside, and the crew was very professional and top-notch,” he said. “It’s another example of what makes this country so great – this plane and its crew.”
Likewise, Theaker also said the inside of the plane was “impressive” and “ominous,” while explaining why it had to refuel right after landing.
“The fuel tanks are in the back of the plane, and if they opened up the front of the plane and took the cargo out without refueling it, they would not be able to get the front closed again,” he said.
The Guppy’s hinged nose opens 110 degrees, permitting full frontal cargo loading and unloading.
“They were saying that there are 12 bolts along the inside that hold the front on, and then there is one hinge on the side,” Theaker said.
The mayor added the next item the Guppy will bring is a pressurized capsule.
The cargo area of the plane is depressurized while in flight, meaning that crew members can’t leave the cockpit area of the Guppy while it is in the air.
Cindy and Robert Figueroa, who live three miles from the airport, were in attendance for the arrival of the massive cargo plane.
“We thought this would be the coolest thing to see,” said Cindy, adding that watching it fly overhead was “pretty amazing.”
Robert, Cindy’s husband, said he enjoys watching the C-130s fly into the airport, but the Super Guppy was more impressive. He said it looked like a whale.
“It was great having NASA out here,” he said.
Mansfield City Councilman Donnie Bryant also welcomed the Guppy. He said this mission means more opportunities for Mansfield.
“This is attracting bigger and better opportunities,” he said. “Listen, if this is the start, then I am looking forward to the future.”
He said he hopes the airport can have more missions like this.
“Maybe we can create programs in our schools to motivate our kids to pursue rocket science,” he added. “We don’t know where this is going to lead us.”
The Super Guppy is scheduled to leave the airport at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
