ozone
Well-Known Member
A friend passed this on to me via email, thought i would share it here:
This was posted on the canard aviators list:
>A quick "trip report" from the pilot of the 747 that flew the
>shuttle back to Florida after the Hubble repair flight.
>
>A humorous and interesting inside look at what it's like to fly two
>aircraft at once . . ..
>
> (I have decided to adopt one of "Triple Nickel's" phrases : "That
> was too close for MY laundry!")
>Subject: (JSCAS ) Shuttle Carry
> Walt and all,
> Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle
> Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have
> to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional
> mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there,
> where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I
> am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The
> experience was surreal. Seeing that "thing" on top of an already
> overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from
> takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It
> was like a dream...someone else's dream.
> We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of
> which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We
> were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power,
> nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision
> speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers
> clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near
> maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at
> rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the
> controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I
> mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited
> until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get
> airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls
> early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels
> finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of
> the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees
> 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16. All I knew was we
> were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the
> flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder
> on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a
> lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled
> even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall
> out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the
> trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started
> to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something
> that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe ...I
> said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle
> carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"! I said
> "TIRES??? OURS???" They smiled and shook their heads as if to
> call their Captain an amateur...okay, at that point I was. The
> tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind
> could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I
> had never experienced. Where's your mom when you REALLY need her?
> The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250
> knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at
> 15,000'. The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking
> by in a fighter jet at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of
> 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every
> length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild,
> compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it
> reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned
> it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I
> had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in
> the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise
> was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air
> to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is
> trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back"..not a
> good thing I kept telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15
> degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip
> code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster.
> Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their
> flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged
> what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what
> everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel
> too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds
> total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had
> an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the
> taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday
> afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the
> ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the
> water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy
> Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down
> the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.Johns
> and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We
> stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps
> 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see
> traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard
> later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look and everyone
> cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see...
> After reaching Vero Beach , we turned north to follow the coast
> line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not
> one person laying on the beach...they were all standing and
> waving! "What a sight" I thought...and figured they were thinking
> the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all
> three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time
> to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep showing this
> thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However, all
> this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this
> 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my
> reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still
> 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low
> approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing
> traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway,
> rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello"
> to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the
> runway to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit. But
> the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would
> be no problem. "Oh thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just
> what I needed!" So we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly
> if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled
> and on speed, that it was fun. There were a few surprises that I
> dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it
> if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a landing
> and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground
> after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING DOWN!!! So
> I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos
> of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this! :
> Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find
> 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so
> super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't
> thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat
> there so long. Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on
> board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or
> were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for
> Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were
> "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the
> mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited
> until we exited the jet.
> I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon,
> screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the
> realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a
> lifetime. Again I want to thank everyone for your interest and
> support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after
> she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.
> Triple Nickel
>NASA Pilot
This was posted on the canard aviators list:
>A quick "trip report" from the pilot of the 747 that flew the
>shuttle back to Florida after the Hubble repair flight.
>
>A humorous and interesting inside look at what it's like to fly two
>aircraft at once . . ..
>
> (I have decided to adopt one of "Triple Nickel's" phrases : "That
> was too close for MY laundry!")
>Subject: (JSCAS ) Shuttle Carry
> Walt and all,
> Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle
> Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have
> to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional
> mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there,
> where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I
> am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The
> experience was surreal. Seeing that "thing" on top of an already
> overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from
> takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It
> was like a dream...someone else's dream.
> We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of
> which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We
> were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power,
> nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision
> speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers
> clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near
> maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at
> rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the
> controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I
> mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited
> until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get
> airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls
> early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels
> finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of
> the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees
> 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16. All I knew was we
> were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the
> flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder
> on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a
> lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled
> even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall
> out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the
> trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started
> to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something
> that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe ...I
> said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle
> carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"! I said
> "TIRES??? OURS???" They smiled and shook their heads as if to
> call their Captain an amateur...okay, at that point I was. The
> tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind
> could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I
> had never experienced. Where's your mom when you REALLY need her?
> The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250
> knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at
> 15,000'. The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking
> by in a fighter jet at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of
> 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every
> length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild,
> compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it
> reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned
> it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I
> had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in
> the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise
> was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air
> to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is
> trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back"..not a
> good thing I kept telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15
> degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip
> code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster.
> Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their
> flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged
> what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what
> everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel
> too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds
> total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had
> an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the
> taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday
> afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the
> ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the
> water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy
> Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down
> the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.Johns
> and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We
> stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps
> 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see
> traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard
> later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look and everyone
> cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see...
> After reaching Vero Beach , we turned north to follow the coast
> line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not
> one person laying on the beach...they were all standing and
> waving! "What a sight" I thought...and figured they were thinking
> the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all
> three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time
> to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep showing this
> thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However, all
> this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this
> 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my
> reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still
> 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low
> approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing
> traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway,
> rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello"
> to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the
> runway to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit. But
> the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would
> be no problem. "Oh thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just
> what I needed!" So we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly
> if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled
> and on speed, that it was fun. There were a few surprises that I
> dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it
> if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a landing
> and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground
> after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING DOWN!!! So
> I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos
> of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this! :
> Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find
> 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so
> super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't
> thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat
> there so long. Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on
> board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or
> were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for
> Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were
> "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the
> mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited
> until we exited the jet.
> I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon,
> screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the
> realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a
> lifetime. Again I want to thank everyone for your interest and
> support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after
> she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.
> Triple Nickel
>NASA Pilot
