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Some NASA dude on TV (when he should be RVating)

admin

Active Member
Cellphone picture of Texas RV-8 builder/driver Paul Dye talking on NASA TV this morning (watching online from the day job).

I wonder how long it will take him to see this, having just gone off camera (0815am Dallas time)? :)


paulpa9.jpg


related: Paul's Virtual Hangar listing
 
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admin said:
Cellphone picture of Texas RV-8 builder/driver Paul Dye talking on NASA TV this morning (watching online from the day job).

I wonder how long it will take him to see this, having just gone off camera (0815am Dallas time)? :)


paulpa9.jpg


related: Paul's Virtual Hangar listing

Just heard him on the radio.

Shuttle crew in good hands.
 
I heard him on XM too... Mark Davis played a clip on his radio show today. Pretty cool!

On a related note... one of our IT guys here at the office is a huge space-geek (I mean that in a nice way). He has a model of the space station hanging above his desk and he buys add-on kits and mimics the real life changes to the station. When the shuttle launches and docks with it he even adds a shuttle to the model. Anyway... I mentioned to him that I knew of Paul Dye from my RV building circles, and he went ape. It took a few minutes for me to convince him I only "knew of" Paul not "knew" him personally. He was soooo disappointed in me. ;)
 
Been a Long 36 Hours....

Monday I pulled what was supposed to be my last shift on the mission, and turned my team over to the Entry Flight Director (we have a couple guys that specialize in just the Ascents and Entries) for the last two days. Worked all night, got off at 0900 and stayed up all day to shift back to normal hours. Got up early Tuesday because they'd scheduled me for the first part of my physical that day. Checked in with MCC and they told me about the mystery piece flying formation with us. The nurse doing my EKG said "Hmmm...this looks a little odd - are you under any stress this morning??" :rolleyes:

Went in, helped decide we weren't going to land Wednesday (weather at KSC was lousy anyway), and came up with an outline of an inspection plan. Went home and caught a three hour nap, then went back in for the overnight shift because my Entry counterpart had no current training in the robot arm or inspeciton techniques. Spent all night on console last night, did all the inspections - didn't spot a single problem, so whatever the thing was, it wasn't critical - did my press confernce (gloriously enshrined by Doug above), went home, took a brief nap, and then went flying.

So I'd have seen this sooner, but I was doing a low-level pass up my favorite twenty miles of wild Texas coast.....weather was too good to miss!

Weather looks good for KSC tomorrow morning - time to get this one on the ground.

Paul
 
shuttle over TX

Paul, I have seen the shuttle enter the atmosphere 2 times at nite and there is NOTHING like it. From what i understand, plan is to land in Fla. tomorrow 622am eastern time? if that is so, will i be able to see it over N. austin area about 5am central while still dark?
Please inform if you have time.

jeff h.
austin tx
 
Negative on that, Jeff.

It looks like the landing ground tracks for attempt 1 and 2 pass well south of Texas
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts115/mission_docs/landing.html

Let's see....Dallas to Belize via RV is about 1200sm. I'm gonna need aux tanks and I need to leave now. :)

I've see a couple evening/morning returns and that plasma trail is IMPRESSIVE!!!

b,
d

PS: Landing the Shuttle 101 and lots more info on landing it HERE



lsu-rv said:
Paul, I have seen the shuttle enter the atmosphere 2 times at nite and there is NOTHING like it. From what i understand, plan is to land in Fla. tomorrow 622am eastern time? if that is so, will i be able to see it over N. austin area about 5am central while still dark?
Please inform if you have time.

jeff h.
austin tx
 
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As I was watching Paul Dye on the NASA channel the other day, it hit me that I'm only 4 degrees of separation from being on the shuttle. Which puts Doug Reeves a lot closer than me.

I fly an RV.
I've met Danny King several times
Danny flew Paul Dye's plane
Paul Dye has some minor connection with the space shuttle :D

Gotta love the RV community.
 
bumblebee said:
As I was watching Paul Dye on the NASA channel the other day, it hit me that I'm only 4 degrees of separation from being on the shuttle. Which puts Doug Reeves a lot closer than me.

I fly an RV.
I've met Danny King several times
Danny flew Paul Dye's plane
Paul Dye has some minor connection with the space shuttle :D

Gotta love the RV community.

Maybe closer than that. Most RVers probably don't know that there is an astronaut that owns an RV. Ed Lu bought a completed RV-4 several years ago and keeps it at Ellington airport. You can read his biography here:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lu.html

On the other hand, I work with the astronauts on a daily basis and don't feel I'm even close to getting a ride. Not a chance in He!!. Most are real nice folks though.

Karl
 
RV8N said:
On the other hand, I work with the astronauts on a daily basis and don't feel I'm even close to getting a ride. Not a chance in He!!. Most are real nice folks though.

Karl
Speaking of getting rides... I've had a couple of military pilots compliment my RV over the years. I always ask if the want to trade. For some reason, I never get a reply!
 
Speaking of trading rides, I had an American Eagle pilot offer to let me fly his twin turboprop if he could fly my RV-6. I told him that I didn't think his passengers would go for that. He said, "Just put this hat on and they won't know the difference." (This was before 9/11)
 
Trading Rides

Man, you guys are writing to loud.....I can't sleep in here! :D

OK, trading rides....my weirdest....I don't know the details of the ride these two "corporate" guys got from our aircraft ops folks, but I got a call asking if I wanted to go along to go fly their machine - the Goodyear Blimp! Many yeas back, the "America" was based on the north side of Houston. What a strange flying machine. It had a single pilot station, with this three-foot diameter "trim wheel" on the floor for pitch, and two long-throw rudder pedals that looked like they came off a Nordic Track. The pilot took off, established a climb, then got up out of the seat, turned around (standing), and said "OK, who wants to fly first?!" :eek:

I've gotten to fly a lot of interesting stuff, but that was probably the most unique! To make this RV related, the top speed of that thing was lower than the stall speed of the -8....

Going back to sleep now.

Paul
 
Paul,

I don't know anything about the details of your job. But from where I sit it has to be the coolest non-flying job around. And probably the most nail biting.
 
Memories....

Ironflight said:
OK, trading rides....my weirdest....I don't know the details of the ride these two "corporate" guys got from our aircraft ops folks, but I got a call asking if I wanted to go along to go fly their machine - the Goodyear Blimp! Many yeas back, the "America" was based on the north side of Houston. What a strange flying machine. It had a single pilot station, with this three-foot diameter "trim wheel" on the floor for pitch, and two long-throw rudder pedals that looked like they came off a Nordic Track. The pilot took off, established a climb, then got up out of the seat, turned around (standing), and said "OK, who wants to fly first?!" :eek:
Man, this brings back some memories! I flew the Goodyear Blimp out of the north Houston location in the mid 70s when I was, uh, younger.;) I remember the huge "trim" wheel (didn't know what it was then) and high deck angles vividly! I'll have to break out the obligatory photo of passing over our house in the blimp, just over a mile south of DWH.
 
Congratulations on the Landing!

Hey Paul (even though you may be asleep!) :)
Congratulations on another successful mission (STS-115)! The landing of Atlantis was beautiful! It always amazes me how they make a perfect dead stick landing every time. I gotta go see one live someday...there won't be many more. That would be a good RV trip.
Don
P.S. We will miss seeing you live on TV, but we'll be looking for you on the mission re-plays. :cool:
 
Great Mission!

Thanks for everyone's interest - it's good to know that people out there in the real world appreciate what it is we are doing. Aviators, in particular, generally understand just how difficult this can be - and can appreciate the beauty of a flight fully accomplished!

Now it's time to go get some breakfast...

Paul
 
Another congrats

Paul,

Let me chime in and offer my congratulations on a well executed difficult mission. It never fails to amaze me how easy you guys make these tough tasks look. Geez, if CNN mentioned my name every time I dropped a bolt in 1G and zero knots I'd be pretty famous myself! :)

Again, congrats on a safe and successful mission. Hopefully someday I can trade a Viper ride for you for a STS ride for me?? :) Now go get some sleep so you can go fly a REAL mission in your -8!

John
RV-10 #40208
 
Years ago, on the way to Oshkosh, my wife and I visited my aunt and uncle near Houston. They both worked at NASA (they have retired since). They asked if my we would like a tour of the NASA facilities.
To our suprise and delight, we got a VIP tour. I got to sit in the pilot seat of both the fixed and motion based STS simulators. I remember they were working on the fixed based sim software and it was hovering in a flat spin over Edwards Air Force base.
I'd like to say that I recovered from the spin and saved the day but they reset the system instead. I did play with the controls a bit, though. After that, Oshkosh was frosting on the cake.

Paul - I'm overdue for my Shuttle BFR. Let me know when I can come in and get signed off.
 
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