Unusual Sight in the Sky Tomorrow

[SacramentoMike]

They're retiring the space shuttle Endeavor to a permanent home in Los Angeles. It left Florida a couple days ago, strapped onto the back of a 747. Next stop was Houston, then on to Edwards AFB in southern Cal this morning. Tomorrow they'll fly it up north and do flyovers at the Capitol building here and a few spots in and around San Francisco.

Should be over the Capitol around 8:30, and half an hour or so later over S.F. It looks like it will be worth making an effort and finding a nice high viewing position for this; it's supposed to be flying at only about 1,500 feet and 230 mph. If I can get a picture, I'll post it up. (If you happen to have a better camera than my little Canon p & s, maybe you could too.)

 

[TomInPA]

The Capitol area has a lot of trees and tall buildings. Without knowing the direction of the pass, it's not going to be easy to be positioned for a shot. If you happen to learn more of the specific flight path, it would help. Just a hunch, but I think some of the best shots may be from just west of the Capitol along Capitol Mall, and even better if you have access to a roof top. A less competitive and less scenic place would be on 7th where it passes through the old rail yard between D and B streets. All of the elevated freeways will have good viewing and load of distracted drivers...be careful.

 

[graler]

By all means get out and see this. It went over Austin this morning and it was very cool. It was goosebumps - riding your FJR for the first time cool.

 

[azitlies]

We were in the middle of teaching an MSF BRC when we stopped it to watch it go over Tucson. It was an awesome sight.

Initially, the request to have it go over Tucson wasn't confirmed. But one of the people in the class said it was going to happen, so was looking for it, think it was about 11:00 am. Quite the view guys, very worth seeing.

 

[MNFJR Pilot]

:clapping:

 

[Top_Speed1]

Flyover Houston...

(not my image)

 

[gixxerjasen]

Nice. I remember way back in high school I was walking out of class and looked up to see this flying low over our School as it made an emergency landing at MacDill AFB. Quite the sight for sure.

Later that day I got a better viewing. My physics class got to go out to the base once a week for a bit of "Physics in the real world" that they held for several weeks. Instead of our scheduled class they loaded us up in vans and took us out to circle the plane. One of those memories of a kid who was a fanatic of the space program, we were in vans circling the truck and way closer than even the press was being allowed. It's an incredibly impressive sight and one heck of an engineering marvel.

 

[Dudewado]

Somebody wake up Old Michael so he doesn't miss it.

 

[Tyler]

I work in Mtn. View and our offices are on the 6th floor... we can see Moffett Field from here so I'm hoping that maybe it will do a loop as well as a fly over so we'll get a real up close view!! :yahoo:

P.S. Live feed for Moffett fly over here:

https://www.ustream.tv/embed/8777792

 

[mferriter]

I work in Mtn. View and our offices are on the 6th floor... we can see Moffett Field from here so I'm hoping that maybe it will do a loop as well as a fly over so we'll get a real up close view!! :yahoo:

P.S. Live feed for Moffett fly over here:

https://www.ustream.tv/embed/8777792

Just watched the live feed. They should have hired a prefessional cameraman. Missed most of the flyby due to the cameraman not knowing what he was doing.

Still cool - nothing like that on the east coast.

 

[Tyler]

Just watched the live feed. They should have hired a prefessional cameraman. Missed most of the flyby due to the cameraman not knowing what he was doing.

Still cool - nothing like that on the east coast.

Evidently, they thought it would be lower and on the OTHER side of the dirigible enclosure... many were disappointed. A few shots from the roof of my office building about 5 miles away from Moffett... not too bad for an 18-105mm lens but with I'd had a wee bit more zoom and a wee bit less haze!

 

[TomInPA]

Arrrrgh Tyler beat me to it. Shooting with a 70-300 Nikon VR lens on a D90

But Wait! It's not over. A turnover Mather AFB and the Shuttle is in for another pass...approaching on Track No.9

Look at the view from the roof of the buildings

One last glimpse of history

 

[Tyler]

Arrrrgh Tyler beat me to it.

Slacker...

 

[mferriter]

AWESOME PICS!!!

Thanks for posting. I needed a much longer lens to see anything from NC.

WAAAAAYYYYYYY better than what NASA-TV managed to produce.

 

[gixxerjasen]

Very nice.

I wonder if the original engineers for the 747 ever envisioned it being used like that.

 

[mferriter]

The 747's have been extensively modified to carry the shuttles. I like this photo of one of the rear mounting points:

Who said NASA engineers don't have a sense of humor?

 

[gixxerjasen]

That's a great pic. Likely a photoshop but great.

And yes, while they were extensively modified I'd have loved to be in the initial concept meeting.

Head desinger: "Ok guys, we are going to be designing a very cool aircraft. It's gonna be big. I mean BIG! It's gotta seat over 400 passengers, um, carry all their baggage, oh....and it has to have a piano bar!"

Engineer 1: "A piano bar? Are you serious? Hell, why don't we make it carry a spacecraft too?"

 

[SacramentoMike]

OK, not the first, and you can sure see better pics all over the 'net and television, but here were the views I got:. I was on the roof of the 6-story garage at 10th and L. So were lots of folks.

And on top of every other tall building in sight.

After a while, it showed up, with its F-18 escort/camera plane.

This one's for perspective. He was flying low and slow. The sun was on my screen, so I had to guess where to aim. Gets a little more obvious on the vid that follows.

Here's what passes for my video. Not only is it jerky and out of the frame half the time, but there's something horribly familiar looking about the last couple of seconds. But it turned out fine, and I thought the subject matter made it worth posting.

 

[TomInPA]

Good job getting to a prime location Mike. I opted for 7th Ave rather than deal with the crowds. Did you see the return flight and second pass?