Launching for Florida (by RV)!

I have been part of the Shuttle operations team here in Houston since STS-1. In reviewing my records, I have been actively assigned to one position or another on more than 80 of the approximately 120 flights that we have flown. What this means is that when you are assigned, you are in Houston ? and the net result for me is that I had never seen a Shuttle launch live and for real at the Kennedy Space Center. (Gene Kranz never saw one until he retired!) With the remaining flights in the Shuttle program rapidly counting down, I felt that it was time I get serious and find my way down to Florida for a launch. Finding myself without an assignment for STS-117 (except as the ?Rescue? Flight Director, and for that, I?d have time to get home?), I decide that there was no time like the present!

Louise had left her -6 in Houston a week and a half ago, her way to D.C. blocked by large weather systems. Knowing that we were planning to go to Florida for the launch, she made a good decision to leave the plane and use the orange and blue birds of SWA to get back to Washington to work, and then return here to pick up the plane. This meant that we?d fly a two-ship out to Cocoa Beach, enjoy the launch together and she would head on to Virginia when I headed back to Houston. I am used to flying this kind of trip alone, and it was an interesting experience to fly with someone on my wing for a change. The fact that we both had 396?s with XM weather gave us a chance to talk about what we were seeing, and I could share my rationale with her as we made minor deviations for building weather. The gulf coast at this time of year always presents scattered areas of thundershowers (and bigger), and flying early is the best way to assure that there will be holes. We pre-briefed the entire route together, including prime and backup fuel stops and weather strategy. Basically, we?d stay on top as long as we knew that we?d have scattered clouds to get into the fuel stops, but if there was doubt then head to the deck and either fly beneath the clouds if we had good visibility, or find a good alternate to set down and re-assess. This follows my theory of staying out of the clouds and VFR when there is convective activity in the area.


Fortunately, the weather stayed typical for us on Thursday for the trip out, and most of the showers we saw on the Nexrad included only one or two pixels of red surrounded by some yellow or green ? small stuff that was easy to divert around. We had planned a fuel stop for Bay Minnette, AL (1R8), based on Intel that it had a brand new self serve pump and the best prices around. That was right about half way, and just to the northwest of the restricted areas over Pensacola and Eglin ? an obvious break point for the trip. We set out ?Direct 1R8? after topping off with fuel at my favorite discount pump at Anahuac, but as we climbed out to 11.5K, we could see that Bay Minnette was right at the eastern edge of the developing weather. Our alternate was just a little beyond, at Defuniak Springs ? not quite as cheap, but recommended as a quiet and quick place to get in and out of along the route. After a few deviations around small cells (all on top in brilliant clear air), I elected to push on to 54J, since it was showing to be beyond all the weather. I didn?t want to get down at Bay Minnette and then get stuck as the storms spread.


I must say that I was really impressed by the performance of the RV-6! Cruising at 11.5K, wide open, I was truing about 167 knots in the -8, burning 7.2 gph and showing about 64% power. I only had to bring the power back about 1 inch and Louise was able to keep up with me ? although for some reason, she was burning more fuel (about 10 gph) than we expected for the slight difference in power settings. This difference held up for all the legs of the trip out, but when she was solo headed to Virginia, her fuel burn returned to more reasonable values at virtually the same speed. We were flying a nice cross-country spread formation so she didn?t have to work too hard for the hours required! The first leg clocked in at a little over 2:40 ? plenty of reserve time. In fact, my EFIS was showing that I could have made the trip non stop (we had between a 15 and 20 knot tailwind most of the way), but I knew I had more fuel than the -6, and I would have only had a 45 minute reserve at landing. Someday, I?ll one-hop it, just to say I did it!


The second leg of the trip out to KSC was over lower scattered cumulus, and cut across the Apalachee Bay. It was great having a geologist on my wing as we looked down and saw these circular ?lakes? in the panhandle of Florida. Seeing as how they were near Eglin, I half expected they were bomb craters from testing the big ?MOAB?s, but Louise set me straight ? they are sink holes and a very active area for cave diving. I?m not going to pretend to be able to explain them?.I?ll let her fill in the details! Suffice to say that it was nice it was a week day, and no one else was on the Air to Air frequency so that she could tell me what we were seeing ? a very cool way to get a geology lesson at 11.5K!


It was a smooth day, not only on top, but surprisingly, down below as well as we descended to duck under and through the VFR corridor across the north edge of Orlando?s airspace. We touched down at Merritt Island a little over two hours after leaving Defuniak Springs, for about a five hour flight from the south side of Houston. The Cape weather was gorgeous ? nice visibility, clearing skies, and a promise for ?GO? launch weather on Friday! We tied down the airplanes, picked up a rental car, and went off to enjoy the beach?.

For more pictures, go HERE

Launch Day!

I had originally thought about hopping an official ride down to KSC and spending the launch with the Mission Management Team in the Launch Control Center, but in the end, decided that what I really wanted to do was to stand outside at the Banana Creek VIP stands and ?feel? the experience. I knew it would be hard to be disconnected from the usual flood of communication loops that I would normally listen in on (weather, systems, launch and Flight Directors?), and Louise can attest to the fact that several times during the count, I wanted to know what the heck was going on?.but in the end, what you need to do sometimes is to let go all of the technical details and just BE in the moment. I know what makes it fly, I know ever detail of every sequence?.what I had never done was to simply watch, listen, and FEEL the moment ? so that is what we did. While I did snap a few pictures without really looking, that wasn?t my goal ? the pros take much better pictures than I ever will. I spent several years of my youth traveling around taking pictures of every place I went, until I realized that I was experiencing the world through a viewfinder, and made a conscious effort to stop and see it for myself. But still. You have to take a few shots to put yourself in the moment?




What can I say ? there are probably many people here that have seen many launches I know we have RV?ers on the forums here that work at KSC, and they must be old hat by now. But to feel the crackle of the SRB?s on your chest as the vehicle accelerates away ? man, that is something else! To see the boosters fall away, and appear and reappear as two little dots as they begin their tumble to the sea ? wow! The little star of the Orbiter and external tank, the call of ?Negative Return? (meaning that it can no longer abort back to KSC)?.it is an experience that makes the thousands of hours I have spent in the Control Center all REAL. The weather for the launch was better than I could have imagined, with no local threats of any kind, and visibilities so clear that the pad seemed even closer than it really was. I could never have asked for more perfect conditions to experience the spectacle. Even so, it almost seemed to short ? they were urging us back on the bus even before the Main Engines had cut off (at about 8:30 into the flight), but I told Louise I wasn?t going anywhere until I heard ?MECO, MECO Confirmed??.meaning the ascent was over, and Atlantis was truly staying up for awhile.



One of the most bewitching moments of the evening, however, came about 45 minutes later as the sun was sinking below the horizon, and we looked up and to the west. There in the darkening blue was a spectacular array of ?clouds??no, they couldn?t be clouds, they were too bizarre and twisted?.in fact, the looked like a contrail, turning and twisting on itself, with circles and lazy turns.



My theory? (And it is just a theory?.) In the hours before launch, the Chief Astronaut flies one of the Shuttle Training Aircraft (a modified G II) around the area doing weather reconnaissance and making Shuttle dives at the runway to check winds. The jet remains airborne during the launch rather than taking a chance of a bad landing that might block the main runway that might be needed in case of a launch abort (yes, we think of worst-case failures?). So they generally go off and hold to the west. My guess about the strange formation is that it was the contrail evidence of their holding pattern ? nothing formal, just the kind of random turns that we all do while lollygagging around our local areas VFR?..like flying a Cub in the sunset over a grass field, chasing the local dogs with your shadow?..It?s all flying. Of the seven guys on Atlantis right now, four of them have Capcommed for me extensively, and every one of them talks flying just the way we all do. Jets, Cubs, Space Shuttles?.it?s all good!

The Way Home

The launch viewing accomplished, it was tempting to spend another day in Florida, but both Louise and I had things to do at our respective home bases, and it would have been foolish to not take advantage of good weather for our respective returns. She was headed to northern Virginia, and I was headed back the way we came, and both routes showed an absence of weather in the morning. I knew that the summer convection would take effect by late morning along my route, so earlier was better, and after a quick breakfast, I was off for my 800 mile trip while Louise did some final re-planning due to her puzzling higher-then-expected fuel burn for her 650 mile day. One again I had smooth air as I climbed to 10.5K once I was clear of Orlando, retracing our route out exactly. Theoretically, I could cut across the gulf and save maybe 80 miles over the loop up to the north?.but being that far over water with one engine is a little out of my comfort range, so the long way works. I left Merritt Island right about 0800 (after breakfast), and touched back down at my home field south of Houston about 1230 ? just in time for a late lunch. Yes, I gained an hour in there, but still ? that is pretty remarkable performance for a ?light plane?.

I managed to stop at Bay Minnette this time, and sure enough, they have a brand new self serve pump, ramp, and ?terminal building? ? that looks like some local representative must have gotten some Washington funding to build. Very nice, and all locked up ? not a soul around (the self serve pump works fine)! Gas was $3.36/gallon, so all you folks in that area might want to fill up! It?s just northeast of Mobile, and there?s nothing around but woods. I had a few knots of tailwind all the way home, making this a tailwind round trip ? rare, but sometimes, you get lucky!

The bugs are getting thick this time of year, but I was surprised to take a couple of big splats on the windshield at 10.5K ? I thought I?d hit a hummingbird! Quite a mess, but cleaning up is a nice way to settle down after a nice day?s flying. Louise made it home as well?.but I?ll leave that story for her to tell! Now maybe I have to go fly a little Acro tomorrow, just so the Val remembers what its like to be upside down. All this straight and level can be a little like hitching a fine horse to a carriage?.you need to let them stretch out every once in awhile!

Paul

Thank you for the very nice write-up Paul. Beautiful pictures too.

Thanks Paul

Just wanted to say thanks for always sharing your trips. Always enjoy your write-ups, and appreciate that extra time you take to do that. Great pix too. Also appreciate you sharing your decision making process with us - always nice to see what others are thinking when confronted with weather, fuel choices, etc.

-Rob

Report from Iron 2

Paul gave a great summary of a very special trip and I am grateful to him for including me. Who could be better to share watching a shuttle launch? And, I can?t think of anyone better to join in a two-ship flight.

The trip over to Florida brought a mixture of disappointment tempered by awesomely beautiful sights. I was looking forward to seeing old haunts along the Mississippi River and Delta, but the clouds blocked our views down. But, the spectacular sights of watching the Valkyrie glide among the giant cues made up for the loss. I was thrilled to see part of the Wakulla Karst Plain south of Tallahassee. It would have been fun to buzz around and look for the various, famous land-based and submarine springs (http://research.gg.uwyo.edu/kincaid/Modeling/Wakulla/wakhydro.htm), but worries about building convective activity kept us moving eastward.

The launch was my second, and I continue to believe it is an event that all Americans should try to experience. I doubt that many people could fail to be inspired by man?s abilities and capacity for achievement while watching and feeling a launch.

I planned my flight along the Atlantic coastline, north to Virginia, as well as most of my cross-country flights. However, I came to realize that I just don?t know the territory. I never felt like I really knew where I was until reaching Richmond. On the chart, I saw the names of towns and cities with which I had only vague familiarity. Hilton Head. Isn?t that a tennis tournament place? Or, is it golf? As a geologist, I best recognized the island as a site where people with questionable judgment build expensive second (third? sixth?) homes. On to Charleston. Oh yeah, Rhett Butler was from Charleston?.or was he from Charlotte? And, what state am I in, anyway? (I can never keep the Carolinas straight.) I made a mental note to make sure I do greater diligence in my flight planning until I better learn my geography back here. I finally landed at Columbus County, NORTH Carolina airport, where I could NOT understand the FBO attendant on the radio. Lesson two: Learn to understand the local accents back here, as well.

Near Richmond, I decided to drop below the scattered clouds and enter the eastern haze that I had been often warned about. As the 396 warned of Restricted Areas and MOAs, I remembered the often-repeated warnings I had heard at the AOPA Open House the weekend before?.always carry a NASA form with you in the cockpit when flying in this part of the world. Oh, flying in the D.C. area is going to be different from the wide-open airspace of the Southwest! While New Mexico may have extensive Restricted Areas, the airspace isn?t complicated. But, as Paul says, flying back here will really hone my skills in dealing with controlled and complicated airspace?if I can keep from having to use those NASA forms too often!

Well, N164MS has finally reached his new home at Shannon County airport in Virginia and looking forward to exploring this end of the country. I hope to be meeting all the folks in the Mid-Atlantic wing of VAF at upcoming events.

Thanks for the writeup

Paul and Louise,

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I take for granted sometimes that I can watch shuttle launches from my house. Not as close and personal as your recent experience, but I get a good view of the shuttle in flight.

I also observed the "cloud" you mentioned as it drifted over Orlando on the westward wind. It was quite unusual. My thought at the time was that it was the trail of the shuttle, affected by various wind speeds that caused it to drift at different speeds at different altitudes, giving it that weird configuration. That of couse is wild and baseless speculation.

I grew up in your fuel stop of DeFuniak Springs. You may have noticed that in the center of town is one of those perfectly round lakes. That is where I learned to swim. Many years later on a rare return visit there, I had my first RV ride there in a 4. I have been hooked ever since.

In my younger and more foolish years, I dived many of those submarine springs in north Florida mentioned by Louise. In one, Devil's Eye, you can enter a spring in the woods, swim underground, and come out in the Santa Fe River.

I very much enjoyed your post and thank you for sharing it.

Tony

Nice write-up Paul. Seeing a shuttle launch live is fantastic. Prior to my retirement in 1987 I got to watch them from many angles. The first was from the VIP stand (when it was up close) sitting next to me was Buz Aldren, what a thrill. I have watched them airborne, flying restricted area patrol with the FAA and many from the ground and or my office at Patrick AFB. Unfortunately I also watched the Challanger on its last flight and initiated the Air Force response to its mishap .... a story for another time. Night launches were especially great.

Thanks for sharing your story and the pictures of your trip.

Great Trip Report

Thanks, Paul, for the great trip report. Your comment about Gene Kranz reminded me of Joe Lombardo, long time SSME Project Manager, now retired. He was always in the LCC and never got to see a launch until he retired. And I'm sure there are others.
I've seen two launches, well really three if you count the one I saw from Lakeland when we were parking at Sun'n Fun and the parking guide got excited. So we swung the 172 around to the east and saw the bright light from the SRB's all the way across Florida in the afternoon! What a sight! The other two I saw from just outside the VAB at night and then from the causeway with my family. I still remember the acoustic vibrations from the SRB's on my shirt sleeve! It was a defining moment in my life!
I hope now to see at least one other launch and a landing. I've never seen a landing although I was in L.A. once and heard the sonic boom before the Orbiter landed at Edwards.
Thanks again, Paul...and Louise, for sharing your RV experiences with us. BTW, Louise, I like that "Iron 2." It has a nice "ring" to it! (Pun Intended!)

Don

Contrail

Iron:

I agree with Tony. I am no expert, but I've watched hundreds of launches from Vandenberg AFB, Ca. and have seen these phenomina numerous times.

My thought is that it is the exhaust from the main engines in the stratosphere and even the mesosphere and that the contrail may even be miles thick even though it appears relatively flat from our vantage point on the ground.

I remember at Vandenberg on a couple of launches, they released barium in this region to study the wind movement there. We had a green spot in the sky for a while!

Along this line, Minuteman launches to the West just after dark produced the "Cross" phenomina when the still burning 3rd stage reached the daylight after climbing out of the shadow of the earth. This was awsome to see and had migrant workers (and many others) on their knees wondering if it was the Second Comming!

I took the same exact picture of the clouds. I was guessing like Paul these were the contrails of the plane not the shuttle. But the other explanations make sense. I was not able to get quite as close as Paul for the launch but we did see it from Canaveral Air Station which is a great place to view. The launch was still great. The last night launch to me was still the best!

TSwezey said:

The last night launch to me was still the best!

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm thinking we have to try and work in a night launch viewing opportunity before the program ends as well.....

On the contrails, I saw one internal note that is calling them shuttle plumes, however, the email was written by one of our PAO guys, so who really knows?

Whatever they were, they were dang pretty!

Paul

Life in Florida, ground bound and flight training...

Paul / Louise,

I lived in Florida for 24 years from 1977 to 2001. About half of that time, I was in the commercial side of the satellite communications business. As a result of my contacts in that industry, I got a pass from a cape contractor to see the shuttle launch that carried Galileo on its mission to Jupiter. I stood by the countdown clock to get the "feeling" of the SRB's and rumble in the air that shakes you physically during lift off.

The round sink holes are indeed common in Florida. You have to be there when one is actively forming to realize that a lot of Florida is a "sponge" just waiting for a sub-terrainian wash-out of limestone to form a new sink hole. One of the more infamous ones formed in the Orlando area that begain with the disappearance of a tree in front of a home in the town of Winter Park. By the time that one was finished, it had swallowed the house, some cars, and part of a four-lane road. Another one once shut down the southbound lanes of Interstate 75 between Gainesville and the town of Alachua. That one was refilled very quickly since it was disrupting travel on one the busiest highways in the country.

I had heard from divers and on a television special about diving springs in the Alachua County area. One of the best lazy days I have had was tubing down the Ichetucknee River and enjoying the social event that it is on a hot summer day in the 72-degree water. http://www.floridastateparks.org/ichetuckneesprings/

I started flying RC model airplanes in Florida in 1978. It was 1991 when I started flight training from the Lantana airport near West Palm Beach. During the 1990's, I had the chance to fly a Cessna 172 over the shuttle landing strip at 500 feet on two occasions.

Nowadays, I fly past the cape on victor 3 up high in my RV-9A. My most recent flights through that area were on May 12th and 20th for a couple of round trips on the same day from the Chattanooga area to Fort Pierce, Florida. The stories about those two trips begin on my web site at this URL: http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a236.htm#May12

I enjoyed your write up and the details of flying with the 396. I had a similar experience returning from Oshkosh 2006. We had to fly a group of four RV's to Brookfield, MO (mike-oscar-eight) to skirt a huge Sigmet area and line of storms that stretched from St. Louis to Michigan that day. The fuel there was cheap and like Bay Minette, it was a small country airport with easy in and out procedures. At that point, we turned our planes southeast and flew individually to our destinations in Alabama and Georgia dodging local thunder storms and rain showers along the way. Details of the Oshkosh 2006 adventure begin at this URL: http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a219.htm#osh2006

There is no doubt about it, flying these machines around the country is a blast. Louise, you need to brush up on the dialects of the South. As a native of Georgia with 24 years of living in central and southern Florida, my business travels have taken me all over the southeastern states. The accents can change a lot from one area to the next. However, these changes are not as severe as what occurs in England. In places around the UK, the dialect just 20 miles away defies recognition as the English language. I had a job in broadcast radio back in my college days of 1966 when I dropped my southern accent for the generic American vocal patterns I still use today.

Good write-up guys! Thanks for sharing the photos and stories.

Jerry K. Thorne
East Ridge, TN.
RV-9A - - N2PZ
www.n2prise.org

Take the kids

I took my 4 year old and my 1 year old daughters to see the launch. They loved it! We can see the launch from our house, but this time we drove over to the coast to see the launch up close.

Similar Launch Trip Report

I have a similar story of an RV trip to the STS-117 launch:

I worked as a JSC contractor in payload operations in the late 1980s. Although I have crawled all over an orbiter on the pad, I have never witnessed a launch. While recently giving a NASA friend a RV ride (and lunching at Brazoria County), we both vowed to fly my RV-7 to KSC for one of the remaining dozen-or-so shuttle flights. Fast forward to last week...everything seemed to be lining up for a "go."

Since the TFR descended on eastern Florida at 12:22 we could not easily make it from Houston on launch day (especially losing an hour). I flew from Austin to Ellington on the day before to pick up my passenger, then we continued to the Florida panhandle and landed in Quincy (2J9) at dusk. Unfortunately, I lost my alternator during the descent. The failure made for a few tense minutes as I wondered when my E-mag would quit and my Grand Rapids EFIS screens would darken. Luckily, the battery held. (As an aside, I planned to replace my Odyssey PC680 the week before but ALL suppliers are currently backordered).

So, now we are stuck in northern Florida in the dark with 14 hours to go before the TFR takes effect. What to do? I quickly decowl and find the problem - the terminal at the alternator was broke. At least we knew what we were dealing with. As luck would have it, the innkeeper in Quincy owns a sailboat and is restoring a MGB, so he had ALL the tools we needed: portable soldering iron, battery charger, wire, etc. The next morning we tackled the repair and still had time to enjoy a nice breakfast at the B&B. I highly recommend the Allison House Inn in Quincy (check AirNav).

We leisurely flew to Arthur Dunn airpark (X21) in Titusville. A local RV-8 builder (and KSC employee) met us at the fuel pump, showed us his biplane and project, and drove us to the rental car company. After a nice seafood lunch (Dixie Crossroads) we headed to the KSC causeway.

The launch...AWESOME. It is hard to describe the anticipation of the countdown. At ignition and liftoff, I truly lost my breath for something like 10 seconds...

I'm surprised we didn't see/hear Paul on the way home. Since it was Saturday and all the restricted areas and MOAs were cold, we cut the corner of the panhandle at 10.5k (maybe 20 miles over open water) and hugged the coastline back toward Texas. We stopped for fuel and delicious Po' Boys in Ocean Springs, MS (5R2).

I still cannot believe our luck: tailwinds BOTH directions, a successful field repair, no launch delays, perfect Wx, friendly people along the way, and actually witnessing a shuttle launch. As we parted ways at KEFD, there was lots of talk of watching an upcoming night launch. Can't wait!


Kevin Jackson
RV-7
88R Spicewood, TX - near Austin

Kevin Jackson said:

I'm surprised we didn't see/hear Paul on the way home.

Click to expand...

Yup, cold MOAs, no significant military training, little traffic....I was in "silent mode"....

Of course, I might have been on your six in the sun!

It really was an awesome launch on a perfect day - my luck never runs that good. I couldn't believe how the local weather cooperated. I found out when i got back that the European weather that went "No GO" about 50 minutes prior to launch wasn't as big a concern as the KSC commentator made it out to be, so we had a rare day with few or no issues.

Paul