HI Carl : I am an organic farmer in Ontario Canada, I really
enjoyed
your account of bringing the shuttle back on the 747, I guess we're
all
good at whatever we do but I can just imagine the stress involved
in your
mission. You must be well paid to be able to do an assignment like
that.
Thanks for giving us an inside feel of your job .
Regards
Simon
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 1:42 PM
To: meteoritelist
Subject: [meteorite-list] Shuttle Carry
Enjoy.
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 of
f 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 1
5 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 spee
d 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
Carl Esparza
IMCA 5828
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