NASA’s Super Guppy sits at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., where it arrived in mid-April for a maintenance inspection by Air Force personnel. Project planners say the work should be completed by Aug. 22. (Air Force photo by Debra Bennett) TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- NASA brought its Super Guppy (Callsign NASA 941-LVH) - a uniquely-designed aircraft used to transport cargo, including parts of the space shuttle program - to Tinker AFB in mid-April so that maintainers here could inspect the aircraft and perform some repairs.
According to NASA Chief Flight Engineer Henry Taylor, officials chose Tinker AFB because it has a great reputation for having lots of capabilities when it comes to doing significant maintenance.
"We wanted to go someplace where we could have the kind of expertise and support to support a one-of-a-kind airplane and Tinker has that," Mr. Taylor said.
Project planners here estimate it should take about 14,770 hours to inspect and fix the plane, which has never been fixed prior to this. That equates to an Aug. 22 goal of completing inspections and some repairs, with a drop dead date of Sept. 29, unless workers find something that requires extensive repairs.
Debra Bennett, lead Super Guppy project pre-planner, was part of a Tinker AFB contingent that visited NASA in February 2007 to discuss the Super Guppy.
"This is the first time the Air Force has gotten involved as everything has been done by contractors," Ms. Bennett said. "Tinker AFB, in particular, was selected because we had so many different things we can do right here."