Space shuttle ferryflight to Smithsonian ready for takeoff

BY JUSTIN RAY

SPACEFLIGHT NOW

Posted: April 16, 2012

Now perched atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, Discovery emerged from the crane gantry this morning to spend the final day at the place she called home for three decades.



Discovery will ride piggyback atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

Credit: Justin Ray/Spaceflight Now





The modified Boeing 747 jet will depart the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT), performing a series of low-altitude passes over the Space Coast beaches, Visitor Complex and spaceport before plotting a course towards the nation's capital were more flyovers are planned and an eventual landing at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

"With the flybys here and the Dulles areas, the flight is going to be about 3 hours, 40 minutes. Just flying time is 2 hours, 20 minutes," said Shuttle Carrier Aircraft flight engineer Henry Taylor.

"The museum wants us to do a pass over Dulles and we're going to try to do some in the D.C. area. The exact route is not published. Hopefully the weather will cooperate where it will be good for the people on the ground to see, and we'll have a photo chase to get some aerial photography."

The D.C. flyovers are expected around 10 a.m. EDT and touchdown at Dulles is expected at 10:40 a.m. EDT.

Shuttle fans are expected to flock to the airport to see the landing, and 747 pilot Jeff Moultrie says he will give folks a nice photo opportunity.

"We have a nice long runway there at Dulles. We plan to show the vehicle off in the taxi to the center portion of the Dulles complex. We're going to taxi slow and give people a chance to take pictures," said Moultrie.

At three hours and 40 minutes, the non-stop ferryflight is considered relatively long for a single leg with the shuttle on top.

"There is going to be so much attention, it's going to be great for the public to get to see it one last time. I just wish we could do more flying around. It is going to be an exciting but sad time," said Taylor.



Photographers gather to see Discovery.

Credit: Justin Ray/Spaceflight Now





"It is sort of shocking on the first try," Moultrie said of getting the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft airborne. "The biggest thing is the length of runway required to get it off."

After the local Florida flyovers at just a few hundred feet above the ground, the aircraft will climb to its cruising altitude of 15,000 feet and velocity of 300 knots.

"You are sort of slow-poking it along compared to airliner counterparts," said Moultrie, an 11-year veteran pilot for NASA.

Also aboard the aircraft will be co-pilot Bill Rieke, who will fly the next ferryflight with Enterprise to New York, and flight engineer Larry LaRose, who will take the cockpit console from Taylor for Tuesday's landing.

With the fueled burned off, the aircraft will reach Dulles with a weight of 550,000 pounds and a 150-knot approach speed for touchdown at about 140 knots.

"It is probably going to be one of the most-filmed landings ever. So I'll do my best and see what happens," Moultrie quipped. "There's no pressure on that!"

Taylor will be monitoring all of the 747's systems during takeoff and the initial portion of the ferryflight before handing over to LaRose. He has been a member of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft team since the late 1980s, among his other NASA flying duties.



Credit: Justin Ray/Spaceflight Now





"I've been with NASA since the late 70s. It's the end of a program. It was a wonderful program for the country and the nation, especially everyone here in Florida and Houston," Taylor said of delivering the retired Discovery.

The native of Greenville, South Carolina, he spent 30 years flying as a flight simulation engineer aboard the Shuttle Training Aircraft, the Gulfstream jet modified to simulate the handling characteristics of a returning orbiter.

"I flew with everybody who ever flew the space shuttle," he recalls.

Logging more than 20,000 dives into runways with shuttle commanders in training, he accumulated over 5,000 hours in the STA for pre-flight landing practice plus flying weather reconnaissance before liftoffs and touchdowns.

Now, Taylor will be one of just four men taking the piggybacking shuttle Discovery to her final resting place at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

"It is going to be an emotional time, I'm sure there will be a lot of folks on the ground here at KSC that it's going to be a sad time for them. The vehicle has lived here since the early 80s," said Taylor.

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