Shuttle Carrier Aircraft makes its first flight

While the 1979 Bond film Moonraker may not have been the best in the franchise (discuss), it did have a great opening sequence. It’s the scene in which a piggybacking Space Shuttle is acquired by Bond villain Sir Hugo Drax’s henchmen from the Jumbo Jet it’s riding on, and, while improbable, it was nevertheless inspired by a real aircraft, the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft of 1976.

Piggy-backing aircraft had been created before, most notably the 1937 Short S21 float plane that transported an S20 mail-carrying float plane on top, and the Luftwaffe’s 1944 Ju88 Mistel, with its FW190 fighter perched above. Both designs answered particular needs at their respective times, and so did the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

The Space Shuttle, a reusable low-orbit spacecraft, is basically a high-tech glider. Once propelled into orbit with the aid of booster rockets and liquid fuel burned through the Shuttle’s own engines, it then uses propulsion solely for adjusting course and instigating its re-entry into low Earth orbit. On the descent back to Earth, in effect it’s a huge glider.

How to test such a massive glider? The simple answer was to piggy-back it onto a larger aircraft and release it, which is where the Boeing 747 played its part.

The 747 was the perfect workhorse and two such aircraft were purchased from American Airlines, each then adapted to carry a Shuttle. Its low-wing design made it more suitable for this task than the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, a huge military transport aircraft. Modifications to the tail of the 747 were made to account for the turbulence created by its new companion, and a tail cover over the Shuttle’s engine cowls aided airflow, too.

The many Shuttles produced took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but not all of them glided back to land there, due to inclement weather. Instead, they would be diverted to Edwards Air Force Base in California (where the first landing occurred) and from there they would be hoisted upon the 747 and piggy-backed to Florida – a simple and impressive solution.