Stewart, Donald (Part 2)

Stewart, Donald (Part 2)

Discussion about Jack Conroy and his Pregnant and Super Guppies

University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama

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Bilstein, Rodger E.

Stewart, Donald

Part 2

[00:00:16] Donald Stewart: What they decided to do on that particular flight was to go ahead and dump the—since the CG location was out of kilter for this particular test—go ahead and dump the water overboard. Well, this sounded like a real good idea, so they hit the pump to dump the water overboard. Due to the pressure differential, the water didn't want to go, so they just filled up the deck—the main deck. It was running in, and Sandy Freizner was on the mic hollering, “You got water in the deck! Water in the deck!” Conroy [on the cruise?] thought they said, “Flutter.” They almost had a damn conniption. [Roger Bilstein laughs] They came in on an emergency landing, and one guy went back to look to see where the flutter was, and he saw this guy, Sandy Freizner [standing down?] he just [inaudible] down completely with water, just came flowing down that hatch. That was one of the hilarious points.

[00:01:22] The other one was we had to…See, normally you have to do, the company has to do their preliminary tests, [turn it on to?] the FAA, and FAA verifies it, and finally FAA will put their people on board and flight test the airplane. Another occasion was that…You have to go through various maneuvers, roller coasters, and check the rudder throw, the [ailerons?]...What you do, you put a pulse in there, in your instrumentation, in your rudder, see? You pulse and you gonna do…You’ve heard people…You say you’re aeronautical, aren’t you?

[00:02:08] Roger Bilstein: Theoretically, yeah.

[00:02:10] DS: All right, well, you know the old dampening effect? You do roller coasters and see how long you dampen out? It’s quite different than the theoretical thing in the book. All you do is put a pulse and let everything dampen out. Well, they were doing this. What you do with the rudder after you do this dampening-type experiment and check for the instrumentation on to G-loads on things of this nature, FAA says, “You've got the Stratocruiser had the limits on the rudder. You've got to check this test.”

[00:02:52] DS: Conroy sold…Any time FAA wanted something, Conroy, it’s just human nature for him to fight it. He says, “Hell no!” and they said, “Hell yes!” and finally they decided we'll do it through some encouragement for myself as a NASA rep. He says he'll get those damn FAA b*st*rds up there and teach them a lesson. They take off that afternoon, they’re doing some [slip?], and they receive rudder effect, and [it's a beautiful thing?] to watch. They’re on board the airplane, and the FAA guy says, “Okay, ready for this particular maneuver?” Side slip to the right, side slip to the left…So what you do is you go into sort of a fixing to fall over and you kick your rudder, and you can get reverse rudder [lock?] on this thing. FAA had never had a [inaudible] like this in the air, so when we kicked it up, started to side slip through the rudder end, and you could just feel the G-load build up. The FAA man started screaming, “Stop this thing! Stop this thing!” So they pulled her on, let her slip on out, get on out of the thing, and then had a rudder limitation of plus or minus seventeen degrees. You never did have to prove seventeen degrees, we only got up to about twelve.

[00:04:34] RB: [Laughs] I hope you don't mind backtracking, but did they leave those two outboard engines in with full props? They never chopped the ends on those?

[00:04:42] DS: No, they never did chop them.

[00:04:45] RB: And I really don't know…How do you…Where do you place your strain gear just on a prop? Down near the hub?

[00:04:53] DS: No, you're going to place it at different stations along your axes. Say your longitudinal axis of the prop is just an [airfoil?] just like a wing at certain stations along there. Then you place it at certain [co-ed?] locations. It's just a wing section. So you put it along the—-I can’t think of the terminology now—but along the center line of the [airfoil?]

[00:05:33] RB: Of the propeller?

[00:05:34] DS: Of the propeller section there, you place it at various stations, so you get a [bend?] increase just like in a helicopter. An airplane propeller tends to make the same actions—lag and lead actions—that a helicopter blade will. An airplane propeller tries to do the same thing, but its rigidity and reduced length, it can’t do that as much. You design an airplane propeller blade to resist all this lead and lag, which the helicopter people found out if you do that you get blades that you can't fly with. Probably you can. What you're doing is you're checking those, as you go through bending and [inaudible], you're checking the strength or stresses of the particular points that collided from the critical stresses limited by the design of the cross sectional area of the blade. All we had to do was one propeller. You gotta do some of this during the flight and a lot of it on the ground. [Inaudible] gets up to 120 in the shade. This can be rather tough on an old engine.

[00:07:12] RB: Did you burn that engine out?

[00:07:13] DS: No, we never did burn the engine out or anything. We had some other, I guess you’d call, anxious moments of different loadings when we were going through our first load test. We had designed here at Marshall a pallet to carry the S-IV-B basically, and it gave the design to Bob Prentice’s people out at Douglas. They built a pallet because they had to make basic responsibility for it.

[00:07:58] RB: It came out of Heimberg’s shop, right?

[00:07:59] DS: Yeah. The basic design…

[00:08:00] RB: That’s for the S-IV you’re talking about?

[00:08:04] DS: S-IV, yeah. So my boss and I—Julian Hamiliton at the time—we had, let’s say, a difference of opinion about what you would put on the aluminum to the aluminum. See, the Super Guppy had two [angles?] that served as the rails, and the pallet was an I-beam that would slide directly on this aluminum to aluminum sliding [inaudible]. My boss and I had a discussion about what to use as a bearing, a lubricant bearing, some sort of frictionless bearing surfacing. I wanted to use teflon, and Jack Conroy, being the non-engineer, talked to my boss and says, “You've got to think of the freezing conditions you get with teflon. Teflon will freeze up.” He and my boss decided, well, they would go to nylon. I tried to tell them that due to [porosity?] of nylon, if you let the thing sit there very long, you're going to freeze. The cold flow that they were worried about in the teflon, you had to get something like 150,000 psi to start cold flowing the teflon. I couldn't talk them out of it, so I suggested we put banana peels on it. [Both laugh]

[00:09:53] DS: So we put nylon on it, and so we were sitting out at Marshall here, designed what we call the cargo lift trailer, Karl Heimberg’s outfit did. This is a scissor on both ends, steering wheel on both ends, to raise the cargo up to the floor of the Guppies. Like I said, we went ahead and installed the nylon per my boss' direction—Julian Hamilton’s direction. We were sitting out at FAA hanger in Los Angeles going to go do a loading exercise with Dr. Von Braun. Somehow about maybe an hour, hour and a half, two hours before Dr. Von Braun was to arrive, [inaudible] some of the officials from NASA headquarters to show them what we had done, Julian Hamilton and the Douglas troops decide well, maybe we ought to go through just a little halfway practice run. They raised the cargo lift trailer up, get it, you know, proper orientation of the aircraft flow, start up the winch to move the S-IV in, start, and it won't go. Start, and it won't go. I told my boss, I said, “Well, remember that nylon you're going to use?” “Yeah.” I said, “Well, I think it's frozen.” I said, “Now, if you take two 4x4s, and put under the end of the pilot”—because it overhung the cargo lift trailer—- “and lower the cargo lift trailer, you'll break that suction you created with the nylon, which teflon wouldn't have done. Now, I'm going over to FAA to finish up some flight test information. I hope you all get done unstruck before Dr. Von Braun gets here.” When I left there was about twenty-five people running around in mad hysterics. [Both laugh] They finally got it unstuck. We were able to carry out because Dr. Von Braun normally is late, gave them an extra hour to accomplish it.

[00:12:27] RB: Did they replace it with teflon then?

[00:12:30] DS: Well, we…Not really. A couple of Douglas design engineers and myself had to hoodwink all his people, wanted to do what my boss wanted to do. My boss, after that, wasn’t as adamant for nylon.

[00:12:51] RB: Is this Heimberg you’re talking about?

[00:12:53] DS: No, Julian Hamilton wasn’t as adamant for nylon as he was before. I told the Douglas people that we wanted to put something on there based on the recommendations, which was oil [light?]. Told the Douglas people that's what we was going to put on there based on the recommendations of his design engineer...[tape cuts out and restarts at “I’m going over to FAA to finish up some flight test information…]

[00:14:40] DS: I came back to Marshall and talked back to Marshall and said that’s what Douglas wants to do. Through a little diplomacy there, we got teflon [delivery?]. The airplane never had any other problems. [Roger Bilstein laughs]

[00:14:58] DS: We hauled [I guess all the S-IV?] [inaudible]. We did another thing one day…Just getting into the operation of hauling S-IVs…So I was on a flight, we were late getting out of Los Angeles, supposed to have cleared various SAC bases, military bases, whatever it might be. On our route from Los Angeles, [USC?], we had to divert [inaudible] because of weather. We had to supposedly [inaudible] supposedly cleared us for all these different Air Force bases. We’re tooling along [inaudible] SAC base [inaudible].

[00:16:10] RB: Is this for emergency landing?

[00:16:12] DS: No, we had to re-fuel. The weather [inaudible] landing there. We land on this particular SAC base—I forget the name of it now—tooling up to the hangar, all of a sudden, my God…People’s eyes [inaudible] didn’t know what had landed. [Roger Bilstein laughs] [From outer space?] [Inaudible] guards, slowly but surely and very fast, escorted us out to the boonies. They let us off the plane, guards around there with carbines and M1s [ready?] and 45s, “Where the hell did y’all come from? How did you get in here?” [We’re supposed to get in here?] Finally, this is about one or two o’clock in the morning. [Inaudible] A couple of hours, the crew sleeping on the deck out there, guards surrounding them [inaudible]. Airplane captain trying to locate the base commander. We finally had clearance to go on. [Roger Bilstein laughs] Fuel up and go on.

[00:17:30] RB: When you flew from…Where did you usually leave from in California? Some Navy…

[00:17:36] DS: No, that S-IV stage [inaudible] Sacremento.

[00:17:41] RB: That’s right, directly out of the test area then, yeah.

[00:17:44] DS: We’d fly out of [inaudible] airport [inaudible].

[00:18:05] RB: How many refueling stops did you have to make with the Pregnant Guppy?

[00:18:07] DS: We did it on the [wind?]. [Inaudible] [...stop in Houston, Carswell?] [Inaudible]

[00:18:33] RB: This is about an eighteen hour flight then?

[00:18:36] DS: Yeah, depending on the crew or the crew ran out of time. [Inaudible] There was a number of things, I guess, [inaudible]. A lot of other happy experiences. There were [inaudible].

[00:19:18] RB: Did you know a guy at Douglas named [inaudible]?

[00:19:22] DS: The name sounds familiar [inaudible].

[00:19:25] RB: Well, I talked to him, and as I recall, he said that they were in the Pregnant Guppy flying somewhere and heard kind of an ominous noise from the back. They said they put down in a real hurry, and a twelve inch gap had opened up. Do you remember anything like that happening?

[00:19:41] DS: No…It’s quite a bit of [inaudible]. We had a lot of complaints about it [inaudible] tests to determine [inaudible]. It could’ve happened and [inaudible] reported. [Somebody?] had failed to cinch up the [bolts?]. Well, and there was different kinds…We had a number of rear [axis?] problems, flying different cargo because we had just started [inaudible] a new airline and air transportation of outsized cargo. We [inaudible] Boeing chief flight test engineer and from talking to some of the [Boeing?] people [inaudible] S-IV-B visibility test [inaudible] Saturn contract. That’s where a lot of their…The Guppy—based on the information I’ve given to Douglas and Boeing people—the Pregnant Guppy proved that you could extend [inaudible] stretch DC-8.

[00:21:22] RB: Is that right? Is that where that came from though?

[00:21:25] DS: Whether the Douglas will admit it or not, yes, that’s where it came from because Douglas…Ted Smith, a few others, I’d say [inaudible] preliminary meetings [inaudible].

[00:21:39] RB: That’s really interesting. We talked to Ted Smith…

[00:21:41] DS: Ted Smith and a few of his cohorts sat in there [inaudible]. Based on our knowledge of building airplanes since the beginning of time the Pregnant Guppy won’t fly. Afterwards, every time we’d go back to test, at the test we had a lot of film coverage. [Inaudible] real adamant [inaudible]. You know, that son of a b*tch is flying. [Roger Bilstein laughs] He would grin [sheepishly?]

[00:22:19] RB: I like Ted Smith. That was one of the best interviews we had. We didn't get into the Pregnant Guppy.

[00:22:25] DS: Ted and his people…[Bob Prentice?] worked with Ted, and [we were all done?] with the Saturn contract. Ted Smith's people had to be a little bit skeptical because they had presented a proposal to NASA to use the C-133 and [inaudible] piggyback [inaudible] carry the S-IV and had gotten a considerable amount of [inaudible]. Conroy never got his. [Inaudible] This was all turned down. We had a number of proposals back in those days carrying the S-IV by blimp, carrying it by [towed glider?]. [Inaudible] proposal [inaudible] glider [inaudible] not only used for the S-IV stage, but the S-II stage, [inaudible] all the stages. We had a number of proposals [inaudible] vehicles—you name it, and people had suggested it. It was a comical engineer at Douglas suggested firing the S-IV-B [inaudible] to launch it [inaudible] the Cape, so…

[00:24:14] RB: Was he serious? [laughs]

[00:24:15] DS: Well, [inaudible] talking about the Guppies, he said, [inaudible]. Conroy, I feel [overcame?] insurmountable amount of negative pressure. [Inaudible] got his basic strength to go on when things were [inaudible] down in the dumps again. I think he derived a lot of his strength from Karl Heimberg and Dr. Von Braun. Conroy would come in, I’d meet him, and he didn’t have enough money to pay his motel bill or pay for his car. I’d pick him up and take him to his motel. Mr. Heimberg would come on and have a few drinks. Heimberg would reassure him he was going to this and do that [inaudible]. [Inaudible] pick him up the next morning and bring him out here. One time, he got so broke that he had to spend the night at different people’s houses working on the thing. I always felt that they...in the early stages, they did Conroy…They would give Douglas, North America, Boeing, Chrysler, half a million dollars just to do a study, and here was a guy that [had sold his soul?] and [they wouldn’t?] give him fifty dollars. But it all played out in the end [with the Pregnant Guppy?]. It was really ironic [the way they went about starting?] Saturn V, Conroy had already gotten the Pregnant Guppy running, and [inaudible] he says, “Well, I think I’ll talk to them myself.” [Inaudible] Sky Trails in Van Nuys, and he says, “I think I’ll build another airplane.” [Inaudible] “What kind of airplane?” [Inaudible] “...Carry the S-IV-B.” “Sounds good, Jack. I’ll talk with Mr. Heimberg about it.” So I came back and talked with [Jack Balch?] and Karl Heimberg, made a couple of sketches on the back of used envelopes, made up some charts, and talked to Mr. Heimberg and Balch. [Inaudible]

[00:27:32] DS: [Fritz?] Kramer could understand how they built this thing because he built the things in Germany [inaudible]. I think [Fritz?] Kramer was very encouraging I think…He went out once to evaluate the way they were going about building the Guppy. [Inaudible] says, “That’s the way we did it in the old country.” [Inaudible] cost a million dollars [inaudible].

[00:28:21] RB: How do you spell his name?

[00:28:22] DS: Kramer? K-R-A-M-E-R. [Fritz?] Kramer.

[00:28:26] RB: Do you know happen to know what aircraft firm he worked for in Germany? What he did?

[00:28:29] DS: He worked for on of the [inaudible].

[00:28:47] RB: Is there any big difference between the Super Guppy and the Pregnant Guppy really? I mean outside of the...

[00:28:54] DS: About seven and a half foot plus…

[00:28:55] RB: Diameters, yeah.

[00:28:57] DS: There's seventy inches added aft [inaudible], rear section [splice junction?], seventy inches there. In the forward section, there’s another fifty inches. Plus the twenty-five foot in diameter. Then there’s a seventeen and a half foot wing [inaudible] section that was added.

[00:29:30] RB: So they didn’t have to chop the prop…

[00:29:33] DS: There was twenty-five foot internal diameter. I forget how many square foot of area added to the verticals [inaudible] added to the base of the vertical stabilizer. There’s tips instead of rounded off [inaudible] structures. There’s more vertical stabilizers and also more horizontal stabilizers. There’s more area added there. Plus, the fact is…See, the original Stratocruiser was designed basically as a C-97 and a commercial version by Boeing. It was originally designed to carry, to be powered by turboprops. [Inaudible] same basic power as the [inaudible] 133. The airplane reached the final stage where it needed props and engines before the turboprop engine was [certificated?] and ready to go. They went to an alternate R-4360 engine instead of the turboprops [inaudible]. The Super Guppy was Conroy’s idea when he started thinking Super Guppy and the difference in weight and size and all this except he needed turboprops [inaudible] thrust per pound of weight [inaudible]. He knew General [Funk?] and General [Gherig?] had two of these Stratocruisers, turboprop versions that Boeing had developed for them and also knew [inaudible] FAA [inaudible] original design turboprop. That was his selling point there. Finally Conroy found out that these planes were going into salvage. All he wanted was the landing gear because of the 175,000 pound [inaudible]. Some basic structures to the airplane, some [inaudible] put these things in salvage in Tucson. He was able to con the Air Force into buying it at scrap for the national interest of hauling S-IV-Bs. He used the wings because they had the turboprop fixtures on there. The cowlings, the turboprops, and [inaudible] S-IV-B. Super Guppy to work up a bargain with NASA, so we were able to get on the Air Force [inaudible] engines.

[00:33:14] RB: Okay, because somewhere said they were on lease or something.

[00:33:18] DS: They were on lease from the Air Force. Conroy got a lot smarter, [inaudible]. We got a lot smarter [tape cuts out] [Inaudible] scrap [inaudible]. We went out [inaudible] the airplanes he brought them back to Van Nuys. [On Mark Engineering?] did the modification [inaudible]. Conroy was able to get a better financial deal. [Inaudible] engineering did the design modification. During this time, Aerospace [Lines?] had had some sort of altercation with FAA, and FAA was going to fine the company. You have to know Conroy to appreciate his attitude: “If the FAA had been in existence when Orville and Wilbur Wright started, we still wouldn’t be flying!” He made it in his mind that he was going to take FAA to court, so sure enough he took them to court, and sure enough he won.

[00:35:00] RB: [laughs] What was the hassle over?

[00:35:08] DS: The court [inaudible]…Conroy used the thing of saying, the Pregnant Guppy is a certified airplane, so we’ve done that part of it, but it should be operated as a public airplane. Public airplane definition is any airplane used solely by municipalities—federal, state, or on a government lease—which the Pregnant Guppy was used solely for that. This is the way the FAA court ruled. The Guppies became public airplanes. When this happened the FAA wouldn’t touch the Super Guppy, so we had to use a different…We finally talked the FAA into advising us as consultants. Bill Gray and I’s job became doubly demanding in the Super Guppy effort because he and I had to do all the reviews the FAA had been doing.

[00:36:30] RB: Was this to get away from that “Part 8” certificate kind of thing?

[00:36:34] DS: Well, it was to get it into a public airplane operation, rather than…But FAA was wanting to stay away from the Super Guppy was right because to have certified the power plants, the wing structures, the landing gear, and the various structures used off of military airplanes which weren’t certified by FAA would’ve probably cost a million or more dollars. FAA off the cuff, unofficially, advised Bill Gray and I not to push that part of it because it would cost the government too much money. Finally, FAA agreed to serve as NASA consultants on the modifications of the Super Guppy.

[00:37:29] RB: Is there one guy in the FAA or a couple fellows that stand out? A number that worked on this, the Guppy and the Super Guppy?

[00:37:36] DS: Charlie [Hawks?] He’s retired.

[00:37:44] RB: Does he live in Washington?

[00:37:46] DS: No, he’s in Los Angeles [inaudible]. [Rocco?] [Inaudible]. L-U-P-P-I-S, you see the spelling in some of the FAA documents [inaudible].

[00:38:11] RB: Is he in Los Angeles too?

[00:38:12] DS: All these guys are in Los Angeles. Rocco Luppis, [inaudible]. There’s numerous guys…George [Stevens?] is one. George [Stevens?] [inaudible] real dedicated. There’s numerous other people. After Conroy broke the ice on the Pregnant Guppy, which was very…They were behind him this time, helping him instead of pushing back, trying to hold him off.

[00:39:09] RB: What happened to the Pregnant Guppy and the Super Guppy? The Super Guppy is still flying.

[00:39:14] DS: Both airplanes are still flying. I guess they’re still under contract with NASA.

[00:39:18] RB: Did Aerospace go ahead and build some other mini-Guppy kind of airplanes?

[00:39:23] DS: They built a mini-Guppy, and they built the commercial version of Super Guppy.

[00:39:28] RB: And they're all still flying?

[00:39:30] DS: Yeah. I believe both airplanes are leased: one to France and one to England.

[00:39:39] RB: So they're flying on the continent now?

[00:39:43] DS: In Europe. Yeah.

[00:39:45] RB: Yeah. What kind of cargo do they carry there?

[00:39:48] DS: Oh, basic things. Outside cargo is the big thing, other cargo airplanes.

[00:39:53] RB: Not necessarily space equipment. Whatever is…

[00:39:55] DS: Whatever is needed. The Super Guppy version of Aerospace [things?] carried the SST [wings?].

[00:40:08] RB: In Europe?

[00:40:10] DS: In Europe. The Super Guppy we have here carried the L-10. Super Guppy also carried some fighters from [inaudible] San Diego [inaudible] Navy fighters. Jack Conroy left Aerospace [inaudible] own company, and he developed [CL-44?] swing-tail, Canadian [inaudible].

[00:40:57] RB: Really? He was in on that?

[00:40:58] DS: Yeah, that was his airplane. Jack [inaudible]. This airplane is being used [leased in England?] Conroy’s outfit was a new company when they made the design, and they took the DC-3s and C-47s and modified them, put turbo props on them to sell them to South American countries.

[00:41:32] RB: What’s the name of this new company? Do you remember at all?

[00:41:33] DS: Conroy…Conroy Enterprises, I believe. Conroy Aircraft [inaudible].

[00:41:43] RB: How come you sold out to [inaudible]?

[00:41:45] DS: Well, they reached…They had some problems with the internal management structure. [Inaudible] bought into Aerospace [inaudible] manufacture [inaudible] type thing. They had no concept of operating airplanes.

[00:42:12] RB: They’re just trying to diversify a little bit?

[00:42:14] DS: They were attempting to diversify, and in my estimation, bleed the company dry, which they succeeded in doing.

[00:42:22] RB: It seems like such an odd diversification direction for them to take.

[00:42:28] DS: Well, they pulled a couple of shenanigans on Conroy, and Conroy just [inaudible] and sold out. They brought in the Boeing people—[Rex?] Johnson’s crowd—and Conroy was running the total operations of two airplanes with 150 people. At one time they had about 5000 people running the thing—designing new airplanes. Aerospace [inaudible] stock offer, [Publix?] Market, I believe.

[00:43:18] RB: Still part of [inaudible] though?

[00:43:19] DS: Still part of [inaudible].

[00:43:24] RB: I’d like to write to them to get more information.

[00:43:27] DS: They probably won’t give you any.

[00:43:30] RB: No, but I mean just to…for whatever they got. They got an address here. Is that the correct address?

[00:43:41] DS: Yeah, that’s the correct…

[00:43:43] RB: I’ll just write to them and see what information they might have.

[00:43:47] DS: Probably want to write [Joe Andrews?] He’s a sales rep.

[00:43:50] RB: Okay, good. Joe Andrews…Should I mention your name? Is that all right? What’s his title?

[00:43:57] DS: Yeah. He’s Vice President in charge of sales. If he’s still with the company. They got more Vice Presidents out there than Conroy had total officials in the company.

[00:44:22] DS: Another difference in the Pregnant Guppy and the Super Guppy is the swing nose for loading instead of the tail.

[00:44:32] RB: Right. How come they made that configuration change?

[00:44:38] DS: It was much easier than attaching all this dolly and different [inaudible] tail. Much less time consuming.

[00:44:52] RB: Did they get design [info?] from that British [inaudible] cargo aircraft?

[00:44:58]: DS: No, that was Jack Conroy’s. Jack Conroy gets credit for having fathered the [maybe?] C-47, C-97 Stratocruiser [inaudible]. He really didn’t do that. That was other people [inaudible]. He just pushed it through [and saw it through the end?]. Conroy did develop, was responsible for the S-IV-B airplane. One time we had the S-IV-B airplane so [inaudible] at headquarters [inaudible]. Conroy came in and started talking to Von Braun about an S-II airplane. [Inaudible] Dr. Von Braun was, he says, “That’s the way to go. Forget the S-IV-B airplane.” We would have run into probably twice as much reluctancy. Everybody [inaudible] did on the Pregnant Guppy. Conroy’s idea was to take the old [inaudible] and modify it for jets. [Inaudible] jetpacks and [inaudible] airplanes, carry the S-II was smaller in size [inaudible]. [Inaudible], a company called Fairchild Strato or Fairchild [inaudible] at that time thought it was such a good idea, they invested a half-million dollars in a study.

[00:47:01] RB: For a B-36? Were there any left around that time? I personally thought they were all pretty well scrap.

[00:47:10] DS: Yeah. Well, they were in various state of…The one that they were planning to get [inaudible] the basic structure for the airplane was in the desert again, so [inaudible] shape [inaudible] Air Force base. [Inaudible] piece at one of the air museums. Even the Air Force was…Assistant Secretary Charles was quite interested in [inaudible].

[00:47:54] RB: What about the pressurization on the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy? Were both of them or was one of them pressurized? How does that…

[00:48:03]: DS: The Super Guppy never was, and the Pregnant Guppy was never planned to be pressurized. The Super Guppy was supposed to have been pressurized but due to the project logistics office—non-engineering people—trying to make too many engineering decisions, Karl Heimberg says, “That plane is operating and let them people have it and get it.” So we did.

[00:48:41] RB: Was the cockpit pressurized at all?

[00:48:43] DS:Yeah, the cockpit was pressurized.

[00:48:47] RB: Could you overfly bad weather then with both airplanes?

[00:48:51] DS: Only with the Super Guppy. We had some…It’s surprising how many experts come out of the wall when you do something like the Pregnant Guppy. We had all kinds of experts in Marshall. Then the Super Guppy, it was quite difficult to overcome some of the expertise at that time. We had experts at headquarters, Houston, Marshall, [Iola?], [inaudible]. When it came down to doing the work, none of them was…They were always gone.

[00:49:39] RB: [laughs] Did you overfly the bad weather with the Super Guppy?

[00:49:43] DS: Yeah, we did. I think it’s about 18 or 19,000, I don’t think you get over normal bad weather—[inaudible] thunderheads [inaudible]. West of the Mississippi, you got to go around [inaudible], twenty-three, twenty-five thousand feet [inaudible].

[00:50:16] RB: But the Pregnant Guppy then, was this cockpit also pressurized or you just didn’t know? Okay, so you just operated them both.

[00:50:26] DS: I’m going to have to retract that [inaudible]. The last I remember, we were still using oxygen at certain altitudes and [inaudible] a mask. It may have finally gotten pressurized at certain altitudes. [Inaudible] oxygen, the same way some altitudes [inaudible]. Both airplanes had to have basic limitations being an airplane, and even the 707 had certain limitations. We had a good…Various people around here to understand that. That’s the reason we had to have real close engineering control, which finally fell apart. We…When Mr. Heimberg’s shop…Finally just washed our hands of the whole thing. When people run into trouble, [inaudible] would bail them out. I guess [inaudible]. The Pregnant Guppy, I would say, is still being carried on a contract, but they haven’t needed a Pregnant Guppy [inaudible] four or five years. The question in my mind now is the Super Guppy [inaudible]. I don’t make these kind of decisions.

[00:52:43] DS: I think Conroy’s vision of having outside cargo aircraft would probably have materialized a lot sooner if he had stayed with Aerospace [inaudible]. I think [inaudible]. Of course, now they’ve got [problems?]...A two airplane operation is going to support three or four hundred people.

[00:53:37] DS: The Super Guppy is a real good airplane, and it climbs about as fast as a F-86 depending on the load you carry. It was given a thorough flight test with the supervision of Bill Gray and myself. We also after we finished this flight test at Edwards, we had Herman [inaudible], chief engineer of flight tests,[inaudible] Aerospace Lines expert on the job. Once we finished the flight test program, we went over and had Joe Walker of Edwards, the old X-15 pilot.

[00:54:33] RB: Joe Walker?

[00:54:34] DS: He did the final NASA-type flight test acceptance in the air frame.

[00:54:47] RB: Before I leave I wanted to ask again about the Pregnant Guppy, and there was an accident and a picture of it out at Ellington. Do you remember about what time that was?

[00:55:00] DS: I believe it’s on the back of the picture. I’m not sure. I believe it was…

[00:55:02] RB: Oh okay. I can check it [out?] the picture I suppose. What was it? The wind just caught inside the [inaudible] bay or caught the [inaudible]? What was the…

[00:55:24] DS: I think it was a combination of both. It was…What do they call them? Dust devils? Ground twisters? It was quite a [terrific?] wind that came through at the Ellington airport. The airplane was tied down to a couple of [tugs?]. [LIfted the tugs?] right off damn ground.

[00:56:11] RB: What was the airplane…It was separated. What was the separation for?

[00:56:17] DS: To offload the cargo.

[00:56:20] RB: It wasn’t the S-IV stage then? It was a different…

[00:56:23] DS: No, we were either picking up or delivering command service modules to test—the ascend or descend stage. I’m not sure…It was back before…I’m looking at some old travel orders here.

[tape ends]

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