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Topless 05-29-2012 03:23 PM

"Too close for my laundry"
 
747 Pilot comments about carrying the Shuttle


This was circulated in email at work, from United Technologies corporate.
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!")

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. Th! e tire s 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 lo ok. 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! :8-)

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
Captain Henri D. (pianoman)

jb92563 05-30-2012 03:31 PM

Geez, he let down to 1000' AGL, thats not cool, he must of forgot that the legal limit in most airspace near towered airports is 1200' minimum.:eek:

I guess being an airline pilot and flying over 20k most of the time we can forgive his 200' and cut him some slack since he had a big heavy glider on his back.:p

That heading for the trees and using up all the runway surely tested his laundry alright.

Pilots are rather stone cold in the face of potential disaster, we usually test our laundry the night after such a crazy flight. Been there myself...makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.....ugh!

Topless 05-30-2012 03:53 PM

Some United pilot friends of mine dissected this story and I think there is a good chance it is fiction. A good read though.

bar10dah 05-30-2012 06:32 PM

Jb92563, when did you last fly?! An aircraft may descent to 1,000 ft AGL above populated areas and 2,000 ft from the nearest obstacle (like, a radio tower), and 500 ft AGL above unpopulated areas. Or, by recounting the 1,200 ft AGL, you're referring to one of the two Class E surface areas, the other being 700 ft AGL? In that case, he's legal as long as he's talking to the tower.

Topless, I feel the same way. Quite a few of the comments in the story just didn't make sense. Perhaps the story is true. But I just can't imagine a "seasoned" pilot making the mistakes and/or poor judgement he did. And then documenting it on the internet for eternity...

bar10dah 05-30-2012 06:45 PM

Of course, aerial photos can be deceiving, but this definitely looks greater than 15 degrees bank...

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1338432258.jpg

thstone 05-30-2012 07:15 PM

This story has been circulating on the internet for a few years. Here is a blog post from 2009: Infinite Frontier: NASA 747 pilot shares experience carrying the space shuttle

Veracity unknown.

jb92563 05-30-2012 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bar10dah (Post 292155)
Jb92563, when did you last fly?! An aircraft may descent to 1,000 ft AGL above populated areas and 2,000 ft from the nearest obstacle (like, a radio tower), and 500 ft AGL above unpopulated areas. Or, by recounting the 1,200 ft AGL, you're referring to one of the two Class E surface areas, the other being 700 ft AGL? In that case, he's legal as long as he's talking to the tower.

Topless, I feel the same way. Quite a few of the comments in the story just didn't make sense. Perhaps the story is true. But I just can't imagine a "seasoned" pilot making the mistakes and/or poor judgement he did. And then documenting it on the internet for eternity...

I was thinking of the Class E airspace around the airport.

I know there are areas where you can fly that low but I did not think that would be one of them. I did not check the sectionals for that area.

Like the others said I'm sure the tale has gotten a bit taller since the pilot gave his accounting of it.

PS: I fly weekly for fun, I have 2 aircraft at the airport about 4 miles from home.

bar10dah 05-31-2012 06:26 AM

Nice! Two aircraft?! Lucky dog...

jb92563 05-31-2012 06:56 AM

I am fortunate indeed, but I paid my dues and made sacrafices early on to ensure maximum enjoyment of life later on.

I'm just glad I'm still young enough to enjoy it all.

A Porsche was on the list and after I learn how to drive this Boxster well, I'll be heading for the track.

Then I can test my "laundry" there as well and see how I do.

Sounds like fun!

Idaho Red Rocket 3 05-31-2012 10:02 AM

Can you imagine how fun it would be to take that ride, but sitting in the shuttle ?

Topless 05-31-2012 02:18 PM

jb,
It sounds like you did it right. Bring your car out to Pomona Fairplex on July 1 and I will show you around the track. Between sessions we can tell lies about Porsches and planes. I grew up in Riverside and spent my weekends between RAL and Flabob. My dad was an aerospace engineer at Rohr and he loved restoring old airframes and motors. As a little kid I used to watch Artie Scholl go through his preflight and then roll out and toss the plane around for 20 minutes or so right above us. Good times.

pothole 05-31-2012 02:41 PM

I'm reminded very much of this brilliant video.

The Vodka Burner - YouTube

Worth a watch all the way through for the laconic "commentary".

jb92563 05-31-2012 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Topless (Post 292263)
jb,
It sounds like you did it right. Bring your car out to Pomona Fairplex on July 1 and I will show you around the track. Between sessions we can tell lies about Porsches and planes. I grew up in Riverside and spent my weekends between RAL and Flabob. My dad was an aerospace engineer at Rohr and he loved restoring old airframes and motors. As a little kid I used to watch Artie Scholl go through his preflight and then roll out and toss the plane around for 20 minutes or so right above us. Good times.

Thats great, its too bad I missed the heyday at Flabob. I did fly in there for an open house a couple years ago. They have a lot of neat stuff there and interesting speakers at the presentations.

I need to go to one of those Performance Driving schools after I get some new rear tires (~2/32 tread left before the wear bar) so I can get a good feel for what the car can do, its limits and how I can drive it to take advantage of its Porsche abilities.

I'd like to come to Pomona and check things out but not sure that weekend will work for me. I'll see as it draws closer how my schedule pans out.

Cars and Planes a couple of great topics to cackle about.


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