When i worked for McDonnell Douglas, I wrote a report for contingency operations where the Space Shuttle couldn't make it to orbit. Which airport it could land at based on when it had a main engine failure, etc. Most of that was already figured out, but the hard part is that the SCA (Shuttle Carrier Aircraft - the 747 that carried the shuttle) required that the Shuttle be empty. Well, I worked on the Spacelab program and we had to figure out how to get the Spacelab equipment out of the shuttle (likely at some middle-of-nowhere air base in Africa or something) and back to the US.
The solution? A C-5! The entire payload of the shuttle fit into a thing called the Canister and the Canister would fit into a C-5. So...that was my plan...
Also, I worked on a project to modify a C-130 to mount a laser turret in it. It was my job to design the turret retraction system. The bad thing was that the turret extended farther down than the landing gear. Made the pilots nervous...
