This week's serving of cheesecake features a bizarre-looking civilian transport/cargo aircraft the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, which was derived from a military transport, which itself was derived from the B-29 bomber of WWII:

In the 1960s, some of the 377s were modified to carry the third stage of the Saturn V moon rockets (the Saturn IVB) from its assembly plant in California to Florida. These variants were dubbed the Pregnant Guppy and the Super Guppy:

(Much information on these bizarre planes can be found at this great page. And according to this NASA page, Airbus manufactured a Super Guppy recently and traded it to NASA for transport of space station components!)

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This week's serving of cheesecake is the Kalinin K-7. This bomber hails from the early 1930s, and foreshadows the heavy bombers that would play such a large role in WWII less than a decade in the future. Looking at its contemporaries, this plane is really a stunning bit of modernism. Unfortunately there aren't many pictures available since the prototype crashed and no others were ever produced. Enjoy:

Images found here and here.

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Here's a pic I took of the Lady Lex's F2H-2 Banshee last weekend:

Here's an archival photo of the plane in flight (found here):

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Could there be any doubt this week?

Burt Rutan's Global Flyer, piloted by Steve Fossett in his record-breaking flight this past week:

(Both images from Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer multimedia site).

Also, this little-known plane from very early in Rutan's career (courtesy of a family friend), the Rutan B-17X:

(Note for the clue-impaired: it's a photoshop).

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Steve Fossett successfully circumnavigated the globe in a single-engine jet airplane on a single load of fuel. Solo.

Details here. And here.

Frank Martin blogged a good deal of the flight.

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