Shuttle Transport Story

I just got this from a friend. I missed the whole thing, even though I
live near Daytona Beach. I did hear about it later that evening, though.

It sounds as if the B747 has its hands full carrying the Shuttle.

******Subject: (JSCAS ) Shuttle Carry


**************************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 was 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 worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space
******Telescope and back.

******Triple Nickel
******NASA Pilot

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