MEMORABLE FLIGHT

I thought this was an INCREDIBLE read. Take the time and read it all and you may appreciate what America can do when they set their mind to it. I'm convinced that we can build the best of anything on earth if we apply ourselves to it.

Reading something like this make me proud to be an American.

John

An amazing story of what it takes to transport the shuttle. Wow - something I wish I had had the opportunity to see!

-----
Picture attached at bottom.

this is pretty amazing.....

Subject: 747 Pilot comments about carrying the Shuttle

Date: Thursday, October 8, 2009, 3:10 AM

747 Pilot comments about carrying the Shuttle

Whoa baby, never thought about the pressure on the 747 pilot.....
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 wa s 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! :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 work ed so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.

Triple Nickel
NASA Pilot

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------