There's a Super Guppy on static display at the Pima Air and Space
Museum here in Tucson off I-10 on the south edge of Davis-Monthan
Air Force Base and the "Boneyard",
http://www.sarimage.com/Aviation/DavisMonthan/ .
It's grotesquely monstrous.
Yes, that was more or less my first thought upon seeing one at El Paso
years ago. There is something just *wrong* about it, less reminscent
of the sleekness of an airplane or even an airship than... I dunno; an
engorged aluminum tick. A giant-brained alien from the cover of an old
sci-fi paperback. Some deep-sea creature that was brought to the
surface too fast. You don't even expect it to be unloaded through
a cargo door so much as split open and spawn its cargo. Yet I
couldn't take my eyes off it -- just stood there recalibrating my
assumptions of what can and can't fly; not just in terms of the shape
but what those seemingly tiny wings and engines might accomplish.
Fascinating in a surreal sort of way.
--Joe