Launching for Florida (by RV)!

[TSwezey]

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!

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by TSwezey

The last night launch to me was still the best!

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

[n2prise]

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

[JonathanCook]

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.

[Kevin Jackson]

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

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by Kevin Jackson

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

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