The Convair 990 was a commercial airliner produced between 1961 and 1963. The narrow body could move up to 121 people across the country at Mach .84, around 585 miles per hour, which seems plenty fast. But it wasn’t quite the Mach .89 Convair, or its parent company General Dynamics, had promised American Airlines when they made the contract.
Sadly, only 37 of them were ever produced, although they flew for airlines all over the world. They operated from 1961 all the way through to 1994 – and that last flight was made by the CV990 that’s parked at the Mojave Spaceport.
This Coronado, #810, had the right combination of flight dynamics, weight, and, frankly, availability, for NASA to use as a stand in for the still-building shuttle Enterprise in 1993.
NASA hacked an enormous bay carved out of her fuselage, right between the main landing gear. That bay, which looks kind of Frankensteined together, is where they wedged the Enterprise landing gear assembly. Her own main gear was still intact, but she actually took off and landed on the shuttle gear.
The engineers at NASA test the landing gear system’s crosswind braking and tire wear capabilities. As a result of 810’s performance, the Enterprise‘s approved to land in crosswinds up to 20 knots, an upgrade from the previous 15.
Oddly enough, while the McDonnell Douglas F-4J Phantom II and the Saab T-35 Draken are displayed with their engines removed, the Coronado still has rotating parts in those engine nacelles. We were surprised to hear the Mojave wind that pushed its way around the plywood intake cover on the number three engine, gently spinning the turbine fan with a lonesome tick-tick-tick.
These images of 810 were taken on a breezy afternoon at the Mojave Air Museum Legacy Park – an interesting and open-air museum that’s right outside the Spaceport.
Marvelous Air Museums 