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Low Approach at the NASA Shuttle Landing Facility
Some say that Edwards Air Force Base is where dreams are made. Yes, over the last 100 or so years of aviation that one place has been the home of aviation miles stones, from breaking the sound barrier, to hyper sonic X-planes, but I feel that there is a place that can top that. Just to the east the Banana River in Titusville,FL there are a string of Islands and marshs that make up the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center. Since 1949, Cape Canaveral and in turn KSC have been launching rockets in the name of science (and for the rare spy satellite).
I have always been interested in flying, however, it wasn't I red the book October Sky by Homer Hickam that I realized that it was worth pursing. At the time of reading the novel, I wanted to fly the Space Shuttle, that was my goal, I ultimately wanted to go to space. "The final frontier". However, with the death of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 I was forced to find other goals and dreams. I say that because there will never be something as truly majestic as the Space Shuttle and in turn the Orbiter. When I got my pilots certificate I new the one place I had to go was the Shuttle Landing Facility... One Small problem, you can not land at the SLF. However, I did find out you can do a low approach down to 100 Feet. So here is the video and pictures from my approach.
If the video does not load it is because it is not done processing, check back latter
Some interesting facts about the SLF
- its name itself is a contradiction, the Shuttle is the Orbiter, the solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank all together.
- the runway is 15,000 long, and you can land and take off the Archer I am flying 3 times with a climb to 500 between each take off and landing.
- if you do land the runway is so rough that it will wear about 1/4 of the life of your tires. It at one point was even rougher but they had to smooth it out so that they would not continue to blow tires on the Orbiter.
I have always been interested in flying, however, it wasn't I red the book October Sky by Homer Hickam that I realized that it was worth pursing. At the time of reading the novel, I wanted to fly the Space Shuttle, that was my goal, I ultimately wanted to go to space. "The final frontier". However, with the death of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 I was forced to find other goals and dreams. I say that because there will never be something as truly majestic as the Space Shuttle and in turn the Orbiter. When I got my pilots certificate I new the one place I had to go was the Shuttle Landing Facility... One Small problem, you can not land at the SLF. However, I did find out you can do a low approach down to 100 Feet. So here is the video and pictures from my approach.
If the video does not load it is because it is not done processing, check back latter
Some interesting facts about the SLF
- its name itself is a contradiction, the Shuttle is the Orbiter, the solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank all together.
- the runway is 15,000 long, and you can land and take off the Archer I am flying 3 times with a climb to 500 between each take off and landing.
- if you do land the runway is so rough that it will wear about 1/4 of the life of your tires. It at one point was even rougher but they had to smooth it out so that they would not continue to blow tires on the Orbiter.
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