IT'S A BIRD... IT'S A PLANE.. IT'S SUPER GUPPY!

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IT'S A BIRD... IT'S A PLANE... IT'S SUPER GUPPY!

NASA's Super Guppy, the world's most spacious cargo plane, touched down Friday at Los Alamitos Army Airfield to return a test piece of the International Space Station that was built by the Boeing Co. in Huntington Beach. The aircraft's bulbous nose swung open like a door so workers

could remove the piece, a 47-foot-long section of the space station's truss, or spine, that will connect solar panels, living quarters and laboratories. The part had undergone testing in Houston. The 40-year-old Super Guppy is the last of its kind in operation.

SUPER GUPPY AT A GLANCE
The Super Guppy is tentatively scheduled to leave Los Alamitos Army Airfield between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Tuesday. It will be visible from Bolsa Chica State Beach as it banks south.

Boeing Co.'s Huntington Beach plant is making three pieces of the space station's 355-foot-long truss, or backbone.

ONLINE: A tape-recorded interview with Super Guppy pilots Frank Marlow and Triple Nickel is available at www.ocregister.com/ science/features/liftoff Click on "space station."

Reprinted From The Orange County Register- January 23, 1999