sandiego89 wrote:
In the last photo from sledge it is the first time I have really noticed the braces, tow bars and wheels used to open the swinging tail of the Pregnant Guppy. I wonder how log it took to get everything set up and opened up?
I believe all the later Guppies had the swing nose (which I still cant fathom how the hinge is able to keep everything all together, it just looks like it would be too flimsy for the job)
It's amazing how light the section moving actually is, so the need for strength is only to hold the unsupported portion of the weight. On the Original B377PG, the swing tail was supported on that tricycle-style set of rollers, bearing the majority of the weight of the tail section, and there were jacks placed on pads fitted to the bottom of the fuselage just forward of the split. Also, the Pregnant Guppy's tail came completely off. It was not swung like later designs. This was required because of the size of the S-IVB stage and transporter. There was simply no way to get the tail far enough out of the way. There is a picture on Allaboutguppys.com showing the tail pulled away while attached to a tug.
The later MiniGuppy was the only Guppy built with a swing tail. It had a fold-down "landing gear" that came out of the tail to support it during swing/loading operations. However, with the MiniGuppy Turbine, they went back to the nose-swing since it could utilize the nose landing gear as the support, although a couple also had additional "gear" that was deployed or installed during loading to help level the swing section. All of the swing-fuselage Guppys also have in-built jacks in the fuselage at the split that are lowered to both help level and support the fuselage when the nose or tail is swung open.
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