Darn it!

I had some time to kill this afternoon in my aerospace class, so I went to
check in on the launch status. It's been postponed till Monday the 19th due
to ground equipment being serviced. It looks like weather and such are
irrelevant now, since I won't be able to make it on a weekday. I kind of
expected it, since dates get changed a half dozen times for most launches,
but I still had high hopes. Maybe next launch.......

Thanks again to those who posted

-Tony
Student Pilot
7.1 hours


"lance smith" wrote:
Hi Tony,

I used to go to school in santa barbara and while ucsb was almost
always socked in I never experienced Lompoc being clouded over. Of
course I didn't go up there very often (there's no reason to : ) but
everytime I did it was clear.

Watch out for any TFRs because of the rocket launch- it'd be something
to see it from the air!

-lance smith



wrote in message
. ..
Hey guys,

I'm a student pilot (7.1 hours, woohoo!) flying out of Long Beach,
California. I'm also a first year aerospace engineering major with a
keen
interest in anything that flies. That being the case, I would love to
see
the next launch out of Vandenberg, scheduled for Saturday the 17th. The
drive is almost worth it, but a flight up there would be great. I
brought it
up to my instructor this afternoon after my lesson and he agreed to it.
It
would be a good introductory cross country and would be a fun trip.

But I've got a few questions here. For one thing, he suggested heading
into
Lompoc, which is about the closest airport to Vandenberg. The launch is
from
SLC-2 on the north side of the facility, so might Santa Maria be better?
Would the view be better from one or the other based on terrain? For
that
matter, viewing the launch from the air would be great. Has anyone done
this
and, if so, where's the best vantage point? Is this a popular thing to
do,
and is traffic likely to be busy in the area? Finally, it seems that
June
gloom hit us a few months early. What can I expect in the way of weather
around Vandenberg for this time of year, generally? It's a 10:00am
launch,
so I'm concerned the haze might not have time to burn off between LGB
and
VBG.

For those interested, here's a launch listing and the homepage of the
project being launched:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html
http://einstein.stanford.edu

Thanks for any input!

-Tony
Student Pilot
7.1 Hours