Shuttle Mission Commander, interesting past

[DJinNH]

Thought I would pass along something I found interesting in the news yesterday. The space shuttle that went up yesterday, they said the Commander is or was a US Navy fighter pilot. Back when they were filming "Top Gun", he was the pilot who shot all the Tom Cruise aka "Maverick" scenes. That included the inverted shot when Maverick flipped the bird to the Mig pilot.

Interesting, he told how those little stunts Maverick pulled like buzzing the tower and the inverted "relations" with the Mig would have cost any pilot thier wings.

He had just returned from a seven month deployment when he was asked by his command to go help with the filming. He wasn't able to see the film when it first opened as he was back out on another seven month deployment. Now...he's deployed in Space. Pretty cool.

Don

[b.walker5]

Just what you need really, a show off driving a space shuttle betcha he can't flip that puppy... inside gravity that is

[Cobia]

Saw the launch

It was awesome to see the huge flame and trail of smoke as I was driving north after a haircut. I live about 130mi south of the cape so we get a nice view from here. Yesterday the sky was totally clear and the view was superb.
I asked my 18y/o son if he saw it since he was getting out of school at that time and his response was...... Yeah, only in FL can you be walking down a sidewalk and look up and see something like that. How true.

[Meri]

Lift-Off Envy

"Yeah, only in FL can you be walking down a sidewalk and look up and see something like that."

Awesome!

Around here, everyone's beaming cuz he's a product of Seattle... however... I'd LOVE to see what you saw. Jealousy rears its ugly head.

[olebiker]

Yep I would really like to see one of those live and in person not just on the tube.

[CatatonicBug]

I grew up in Southern California, and I remember as a kid when the shuttle would come back down, it would come over our area and the sonic boom would rattle the windows. I always looked forward to that!

[Cobia]

Saw the first one in person

And it was truely impressive. The vibrations coming from it are incredible. Although more than 1/4mi away you feel them on your chest and then, since I was accross a body of water, you can see the the effects on the water as a series of small waves radiating from the launch area. Of course, the land shakes under your feet too.

[DJinNH]

Since I lived in Florida from '85 to '06, I got to see a number of launches. I remember one of the first I could see was a night launch. We were in a boat about 20 miles south of Islamorada, Florida Keys. I'd follow it with Night Vision Goggles and could actually see the rocket boosters trail away from all the way down where we were.

It looked like a red flare back in the Everglades, then as it got higher there was no mistaking what it was.

Saw a few more when I lived in West Palm Beach. The coolest was one that went up right after sunset. Amazing!!!

Two more were seen from the Clearwater area at night.

I watched Columbia go up while standing there in St. Augustine. No problem seeing that in the middle of the day from that close. Unfortunately, that was the mission when they broke up over Texas.

One more day launch....I was working the RADAR and camera in a US Customs Cheyenne aircraft. We had just passed over John Travolta's home with the airstrip....the pilot said, "Scroll that camera off to the East." There went another shuttle heading up.

Don

[TopCatGr58]

Well, this is going to date me but,

I grew up in Orlando, Fla, and remember being taken outside in elementary school IIRC in '68 to see the Saturn V/ Apollo projects going up. Couldn't hear anything that far away from the coast, but could see the rocket and smoke trails going up in the sky thru the clouds!! Never did get to see one take off in person though!
T.C.

[dbeardslee]

For some reason this thread reminded me of the female shuttle astronaut who went to Florida to threaten or harm the girl friend of another shuttle astronaut - it was all over the news several months ago. Now I can't get the image of Tom Cruze in a diaper out of my head .

[DGXSER]

OK Doug, next time, open the garage door before you work on Betsy! Either that or you need to get out MUCH more!!

[Trainzz]

Booooom

When I was just a little nipper, we used to farm in Western Ks. The bombers would pass over our fields leaving McConnel air farce base. Nothing like sitting on the tractor, half-asleep, and having one of those big old boys go overhead at about 1500 ft. Pucker factor +9.