STS-119 Discovery Launch

STS-119 has been delayed several times over the past few months. Most recently, it was scheduled for Wednesday, March 11, but that date was scrubbed due to a hydrogen valve leak. NASA rescheduled the launch for Sunday, March 15 at 7:43pm. All morning, I refreshed the NASA web page to see if there was anything new of interest and to see if the countdown was still on. At 12:33pm, the countdown passed the point where the valve leak had been discovered on the previous launch attempt, so things were looking good. At that time, the weather was 80% go due to some showers and partial overcast sky. For me, 80% was good enough, so we packed our gear and headed for Titusville.

The previous Tuesday, I programmed all the best viewing locations into my GPS. In the car, I pulled up Sand Point Park and let the GPS find the best route. It was busy finding satellites as we backed out of the garage.

We arrived at the park about four hours before the launch. Andrew headed straight for the playground and we followed. We had lots of time to kill and I chose this park specifically because it had a playground and picnic tables, and was very close to the best viewing location. Andrew continued to play, but I wanted to check out the other nearby viewing locations - specifically Space View Park.

I grabbed my cell phone and said good-bye to Susan and Andrew and walked two blocks to Space View Park. People were already camped out near the water's edge. Across the Indian River, the launchpad was clearly visible. A waterfront spot is by far the best location, especially if you want to shoot some photos. I did want to take pictures, but I wasn't willing to set up camp and stay put for the next 3 1/2 hours, so I moved on, looking for other good viewing spots.

I found the center of the space travel geek world nearby, and I say that lovingly because I'm only a pocket protector and a slide rule away from being one of them myself. These folks are hard core. They had their spots all setup, complete with chairs, umbrellas, coolers, wireless computer connections, radios, cameras... the works. The official NASA countdown was being broadcast over loudspeakers. I saw the local T.V. station guys on site. I saw camera lenses that must have been 1000 mm (1 meter long). There were vendors selling hats and T-shirts. The ice cream man was there, playing his one, quickly-becoming-annoying song over and over. I saw a guy with an ultramobile computer with wireless Internet access. He was planning to do live, real-time blogging (tweating, to be precise) of the event to a party of similar-minded astro-geeks in Australia. He had a clock on his computer desktop set to Australian time so he wouldn't have to do the conversion in his head. I had to struggle to walk down the sidewalk without stepping on someone, or their pile of stuff.

I quickly concluded that this was not the place for me. I crossed the street away from the river and found that the park continued on the other side, as well. There was hardly anyone on this side. There was a nice pond with fountains, and a hill at the opposite end. I started thinking that hill may be a pretty good spot.

I called Susan and let her know where I was and what I was doing. I started walking back to Sand Point Park and met Susan and Andrew heading my way. I took them back to see some of my choice locations. Andrew saw the water's edge and wanted to get a closer look. We walked to the end of a drainage pipe before turning around and finding rocks to throw in the river. With that out of his system, we continued on our journey. Andrew heard the ice cream man song and instantly recognized its meaning. I told him we could walk to the drug store and get ice cream much cheaper. He didn't want to walk that far, so I pointed to the CVS store across the street and he changed his mind. We bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's and found a cool spot in the shade to eat it.

Andrew, now fully sugared up, was ready to return to the playground. He played, while Susan and I worked on getting lunch/dinner ready. We ate sandwiches and snacks, then packed the food away and started gathering our blankets, binoculars, camera gear, and Andrew's bag of assorted can't-leave-home-without-'em toys. It was now about 1 1/2 hours until scheduled launch time.

We walked back to the little hill near the pond at Space View Park and set up camp on the little hill between two palm trees. I set up the tripod and camera near the fence around the pond and started checking angles and composures at different zoom levels. All of a sudden, our little quiet spot became quite busy. Strangers started asking if they could see the launch from here. We point to the launchpad, which was visible in the distance between two palm trees on the opposite side of the pond. Before long, we had a family from Texas and an older couple from south Florida - who had never witnessed a live launch - sharing our hill.

The Texans had the good fortune of having the previous launch delayed. They had just arrived in Orlando on Saturday and were in town for a Disney vacation. They had two young daughters and Andrew quickly showed them his bag of toys and started playing with the five (almost six) year old.

The time passed quickly and soon it was 7:30. I was starting to get anxious. I had no idea how to shoot the launch. If it were a day launch, I'd shoot with normal exposure times - 1/250 seconds at ISO 100, for example. If it were a night launch, I'd shoot 30 seconds at ISO 400 or 800. In either case, I could try some test shots to judge the best exposure settings and adjust as necessary. But this was a twilight launch. Every minute or two, the lighting changed as the sun fell in the western sky. I ended up choosing 1 second exposures at ISO 100 with the aperature dialed down to f22.

Soon it was showtime. I heard the crowd saying they saw fire; the shuttle was launching. The sky began to light up and I started snapping pictures. The camera was set for continuous shooting, so I simply held the shutter release and continued holding it until the shuttle was no longer in my frame. The photo below is the last photo in the series.

As the shuttle climbed through the atmosphere, it quickly reached an altitude at which it crossed the twilight boundary and entered direct sunlight. The smoke plume changed from gray, to orange, then to bright white. I reconfigured the camera and tripod and snapped a few more pictures of the brightly lit column of smoke. The photo below is my favorite of the bunch. If you click the picture, you'll get a full size photo. If you look very closely, you'll see the solid rocket boosters separating from the shuttle.

This was my second live launch and I've enjoyed them both. I still haven't felt the rumble that all the residents claim to feel during a launch. Personally, I think they are simply embellishing the story a little bit.

After the launch, the crowd started moving our way. Within minutes, we were completely surrounded, then a few minutes later, we were completely alone. Everyone, so it seemed, was now sitting in a car trying to get out of town. We discovered that the fountain was lit with red and orange lights, so I took some pictures near it. Andrew thought it looked like a volcano fountain.

As we started walking back to our car, a group asked us if we had seen the space station. We said no, and a man pointed to a dot in the sky that was moving quickly to the northeast. For all I know, he may have been pulling my leg, but if not, what a nice cherry on top of a great day.

Back in the park, we joined the race out of town. It wasn't much of a race, though. It was more like a rain delay at Daytona. Everyone was in their cars, but no one was going anywhere. It took forever to drive the two miles to I-95. Relief at last, or so we thought. Once on the highway, we quickly came to a stop once again. We crawled along in first gear for about six miles, at which point all those darn tourists (he he) headed back to Orlando and we continued on to the south. During the long crawl, I discovered the trip calculator on the GPS. I had plenty of time to play with it. We were averaging 11 mph since we started the trip an hour earlier. Our remaining time was locked on 1 hour 14 minutes for at least 40 minutes.

Home at last after a long, fun, exciting day of playground playing, ice cream eating, picnic lunching, and shuttle launching. I'm looking forward to the next one already.

UPDATE:

As I was moving the photos to my computer, I discovered that quickly viewing the photos one after another created an animation of the launch. Using Picasa, I put together a litte time-lapse movie of the launch.

Firefighter's Fair

The Firefighter's Fair started today and runs all week at the fairgrounds in Sebastian. There was a great deal on ride tickets for kids today, so we decided today was the best day to go. Normally, ride tickets are about a dollar per ticket, with most rides requiring three or more tickets. The deal we got was a $12 wrist band for Andrew that was good for unlimited rides between 1:00 and 7:00. We figured Andrew would easily get our money's worth of riding.

We got a late start, but it didn't matter because a brief but heavy rain shower past through and we didn't want to get soaked. The shower past and the forecast looked pretty good, so we headed north. We arrived sometime around 2:00 and bought our tickets to get in, and Andrew's wrist band.

Andrew was very methodical about the rides he wanted to try. We started a counterclockwise loop and he picked each ride along the way and rode it one time before moving on to the next. This continued all the way around the midway. He rode the big slide, ran through two obstacle course fun houses, rode in a monster truck, rode a caterpillar roller coaster, flew on the swings, and drove the bumper cars.

By this time, we were all starting to get hungry. We came prepared with snacks, so we got our hands stamped and left the fair. Back at the car we ate chips, Goldfish, and Starburst candy - one highly yummy and lowly nutritious lunch. As we munched our munchies, it started to rain - great timing.

Quickly, 5:00 was approaching. We wanted to see the fire fighter demonstration, and it was starting soon. Luckily, the rain stopped, so we headed back into the fair. By now, the showers had completely passed and the skies turned blue. The demonstration was fun. The fire fighter invited four kids to join him up front. He separated them into teams - boys against girls. Both teams had to connect a hose to the 'truck', roll it out, connect a nozzle to it, and put out a 'fire' in the building. They also had to use a water-filled fire extinguisher on the fire. The boys won, so they got the honor of shooting the fire cannon at the crowd. People started to move back as they climbed the tower. When the girls pulled the alarm, the canon blasted the crowd with confetti rather than water. Andrew thought that was pretty cool, but the boys on the tower were disappointed.

After the show, Andrew ran into one of his classmates. He followed her and her friend around for the next half hour or so. They went back to the fun house obstacle course and ran through it again and again and again. Finally, his friend had to leave, but Andrew wanted to continue. He must have ran through the fun house another dozen times before finally deciding to move along.

We made the loop once more, and found ourselves back at the swings. Andrew loves the swings, as is quite evident from the look on his face below.

By this time, 7:00 was nearly upon us. We told Andrew that he had time for just one more ride. I thought he'd go for the fun house one more time, but he wanted to do the bumper cars again instead. He did and that was the end of his magic wrist band. Needless to say, he was very upset about that.

Soon, his frustration turned to hunger and he was ready to eat some 'real' food. I was proud of the fact that I hadn't spent any money, other than admission and the wrist band, all day. Well, that soon ended because Andrew wanted a corn dog, lemonade, and funnel cake with powdered sugar. Oh, my poor budget!

We had a great time, and Andrew got to ride a lot of rides and play with a classmate.

CFI-A Lesson 13

For those paying attention, you're probably wondering what happened to lesson 12. Lesson 12 is all about spins and FlightSafety sub-contracts that lesson out to a private company. I'm scheduled for lesson 12 on March 24.

This lesson started with a wrap-up of lesson 11. We spent the first 30 to 40 minutes discussing Certificates and Publications. The Certificates discussion was straight out of Part 61 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs). The Publications discussion was more difficult because it wasn't exactly clear where to find all the publications that are available. The FAA, afterall, is a government agency and their primary purpose in life is to generate paperwork and confusion. ;-)

We quickly briefed the flight and were on our way. My instructor selected a variety of maneuvers for me to demonstrate. We started with a Short Field Take-off, then headed west to the practice area. After doing my safety checks and checklist, I did Steep Turns, Basic Attitude Instrument Flying, Slow Flight, a Power-On Stall, and a Simulated Emergency. Then I did Eights on Pylons and headed back to the airport. We ended with a Short Field Landing.

Overall, I think I performed all the maneuvers better than ever before. As for the instruction aspect, my instructor gave me some great tips about the simulated emergency; things that will help a student understand the importance of each step and the logical flow involved. We also discussed my Power-On Stall technique. I was a little too agressive while increasing pitch. The plane will easily enter the stall at a much lower pitch, but it takes a little longer, so some patience is required.

I guess I get the rest of the week "off", so if I'm smart, I'll continue working on my FAR flash cards, my Fundamentals of Instruction, and re-learning the performance numbers for the Piper Arrow. Not to mention adding my notes and feedback to my existing lesson plans.

CFI-A Lesson 11

Today's lesson was a ground brief only - no flight - covering Obtaining Weather and Navigation & Flight Planning. I started preparing for this last week by summarizing every weather report, forecast, and chart known to pilots and the three types of briefs (Hanes, Fruit of the Loom... Just kidding): Outlook, Standard, and Abbreviated. Then I started working up an example flight plan from Vero Beach to La Belle. And then I tried something new. I pretended that a sheet of paper was a whiteboard and I drew my presentations; one per sheet. As I drew, I found that I needed to move things around for clarity. That's exactly why I did it. When I got to the actual brief, I knew exactly what I was going to draw/write and where to place it on the board.

I spent six hours this morning and early afternoon working out the details of the flight plan and working on combining the two briefs into one seemless whole that played off of both themes. I wanted to start generic - airport A and B - and then get more specific with each new item placed on the board.

When the brief began, I drew overhead and profile views of my generic route, then asked the question, "As a flight student, what rules must we follow when flying a cross country flight?" The answer is visual flight rules (VFR). So what defines VFR? Visibility and cloud clearance, but that varies by airspace. So let's assume that we start in Class D airspace, fly through Class E, and land in Class G airspace. Now, what is the most restrictive conditions? Class D and Class E are equally restrictive, but wait, FlightSafety has additional restrictions for student pilots. What are they? They're listed in the rules and regulations. OK, now that we have our clouds and visibility defined, where do we get the information? The Weather Channel? CNN? The local news? I listed all places and then asked which the FAA considers official sources and explained that the others were fine for getting a big picture days in advance of the flight, but within 24 hours of a flight, you must use the official sources. I then recommended that my 'student' use the flight briefer from the Flight Service Station, rather than the Internet sources, because they are trained professionals and can often tell you things that you wouldn't otherwise get from reading the raw data.

With my weather brief rolling and drawn on the board, we got up and walked to the weather room. I tried (unsuccessfully) to download the latest weather. The network was having issues, so I suggested we look at the data from my last flight.

I covered wide scope to narrow scope; Area Forecasts to Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts to Meteorological Aviation Reports. These three documents provide the cloud and visibility information for a given flight. Based on this data, the flight was a go. Then we looked at the various charts and very briefly talked about what they provided to the go/no-go decision. Again, the flight was a go. Finally, we looked at Winds Aloft and tied that back into the flight plan.

I erased everything from the board except my generic airports and airspaces and renamed them to be what they actually are - Vero Beach and La Belle. Then I pulled out my sectional chart showing the route. Back on the board, I discussed the route. The first choice when selecting a route is usually direct, but what can cause a non-direct routing? I showed Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs), Restricted airspace, obstacles, and large open areas - water or swamp. In our case, we had none of these, so we chose direct. At this point, the flight is a go.

Then I started discussing the destination airport. I asked what sources of data are available for airports - the sectional, the Aiport/Facility Directory, and Notices to Airmen. I discussed why checking NOTAMs is so important - the sectional is up to 6 months old, the A/FD is up to 56 days old, but NOTAMs are current. So, if a runway was closed, you may only find out by checking the NOTAMs. I also brought up two FlightSafety rules: 1) All solot cross country flights must be to an airport on the list of approved airports, and 2) All pilots on cross country flights must top the fuel tanks before returning. La Belle is on the approved list and has fuel, so the flight was still a go.

Next up was choosing checkpoints along the route. Obviously, the two airports are included, but what others would be good choices? I suggested picking spots that are 20 to 30 nautical miles apart, which is approximately 10 to 15 minutes flight time. Then I suggested top of climb and top of descent because they must be calculated as part of the route calculation. Then I mentioned other checkpoints along the route that could be used as part of pilotage, which led into a discussion of pilotage, dead reckoning, and navigational aids. Our route didn't have many navaids, so then we talked about determining an altitude. Thing to consider include clouds, distance between points, air space restrictions, and the hemispheric flight altitude rules (odd thousand + 500 for east and even thousand + 500 for west). We chose to plan for 4,500 feet, based on our southwest course, winds aloft, and distance.

With checkpoints in hand, we used the winds aloft data to calculate compass heading, airspeed, time to checkpoint, and fuel consumption. The fuel consumption was well within the capabilities of the Cadet and met VFR minimum requirements. The flight was still a go.

At this point - 1 hour and 15 minutes into my presentation - my instructor pulled the plug. He was pleased with my presentation and had seen enough to know that I had done my homework and was being very thorough. He went over some areas where I mispoke and offered some common sense-type things a student might not know. Then we called it a wrap and started discussing Lesson 13. I'll be sub-contracting out Lesson 12, so my next FSI lesson is 13. So, my days of flying the Cadet are over, for now. It's up the ladder to the Arrow, a 200-hp retractable gear speed demon.

My primary goal was to find a way to make the presentation seamless and well-flowing, while hitting the main points over and over again. I think I succeeded in making the point that several factors are involved in the go/no-go decision. I would have liked to have had more time to cover what-if scenarios that might come up in flight so I could cover areas of judgment, but time ran out. I'll be sure to get that in when I do this for real, with a real student someday.

NASA's Kepler Launch

After my lesson last night, I went home and had dinner with the family. Afterwards, I went to the NASA web site and searched for the best location to watch a launch. Near the top of the list was Jetty Park in Cape Canaveral. I looked it up on Google Maps and printed it out, then went to the car and grabbed my GPS. I entered the park into my favorites so I could choose it as a destination later. Finally, I grabbed my tripod, camera, several layers of warm clothes, flashlights, and blankets and loaded the troops into the Honda. The launch was scheduled for 10:49PM and we were out the door by 7:30. The map below shows Jetty Park. Zoom out to see the region better.

View Larger Map

Before leaving the driveway, I setup the GPS to route to Jetty Park. Our first stop was the gas station. Andrew wanted to help, so I let him push buttons on the pump, put the nozzle into the car, and wash the windows. He's a great helper, but the windows are much worse than before now (frown). I had to do the windshield myself so I could see to drive.

On the highway and on our way, Andrew quickly fell asleep in his booster seat. Susan was reading her book as we headed north on I-95. It didn't take long before the pace was broken - Susan needed a restroom stop. Luckily, a rest area was just 3 miles up the highway. I stopped, she ran, and Andrew slept through it all.

Back on the road again, the GPS chose to route us into Cape Canaveral on route 528. Not a bad choice, but I had other plans. I wasn't sure if the causeway would be open, so I took a more southerly exit - route 520. The GPS was not happy with this decision. It started pleading to me to turn around in 500 feet. This pleading continued for at least a mile or two, then it finally gave up and chose another route. Unfortunately, I had other plans once again, so the pleading soon returned.

As we entered Cocoa and headed east towards Merrill Island, I realized that I left my Google Map on the printer - DOH! We finally rejoined route 528 and followed the GPS suggestions the rest of the way. It brought us to the Cape Canaveral Cruise Terminal, not Jetty Park. I deleted the route and started driving around looking for the park. We found a line of cars and joined them. Sure enough, we were headed for the park.

By this time it was 8:50. Two hours to go and traffic was already getting thick. We crawled along with the pack of cars trying to get into the park. When we reached the gate, we found that we needed $7.00 to get in. We had no cash and they didn't accept credit cards. Besides that, we felt the price was a bit high for a couple hours in the park, so we turned around and headed back towards the terminal.

We backtracked our route for about a mile, then turned east towards the beach. We came to a road lined with hotels, but the parking lots had ominous signs, like "Trespassers Will Be Towed". We continued south and came across a park, but it's gate was closed at dusk. We turned around once more and continued south once more. Then we saw what appeared to be a tiny beach access road. I pulled in and found two open spots; there was only about eight total. I got out and surveyed our selection. I crossed the dunes on the boardwalk, looked north up the beach, and there stood the Delta II rocket on launchpad 17-B, lit up with dozens of bright lights, just a few miles away. Awesome!

I returned to the car to gather the troops and gear. We walked through the closed park to a boardwalk a little closer to the launch site and further from the main entrance. I spread out the blankets while Susan held Andrew. They got comfortable while I set up the tripod and camera and took some test shots. It wasn't cold out, but I was certainly glad I brought along several layers.

By the time I finished setting up, it was 10:00. Susan set a timer for 10:45 so we'd be ready for the launch. And then we waited... and waited... and waited. The crowds started growing on the beach. I saw people on the balconies of the nearby hotel. I even saw someone on the roof of the hotel. Excitement was in the air, and it was the perfect night for a launch. The sky was completely clear with the moon and stars shining brightly. The moon was so bright that I didn't need the flashlights to see where I was walking.

The timer went off, so I climbed out from under the blanket and shifted Andrew to Susan's lap. He was still sleeping, but we knew he didn't want to miss the launch. Susan worked at waking him, while I verified that the camera was setup properly. By this time, there were hundreds of people on the beach nearby.

And then it happened. The sky lit up orange and the rocket started its long climb to space. I clicked the shutter for a 30-second exposure. The crowd cheered wildly as the rocket accelerated over the Atlantic. By the time my shutter closed, the sound finally reached us. It built quickly into a low, cracking rumble, but didn't quite reach the level of shaking our organs.

About a minute into the launch, we saw six red dots falling behind the rocket and slowly descending. After another minute, we saw even more dots fall behind. And then the rocket was gone.

Andrew was very excited and described the launch events over and over. A group of three walked up to me and asked about the camera, so I showed them my picture. They asked for a copy and gave me an email address. We packed everything and walked back to the car. At this point, I was very pleased that we didn't go to Jetty Park. If it was that slow getting in, I wonder how difficult it would have been getting back out.

The GPS picked a much more acceptable route back to Vero Beach, so I followed its queues. Andrew wanted to see the bridges over the Banana and Indian Rivers, so he stayed awake as long as he could. He saw the bridges, but was out before we reached I-95. We pulled into the garage a little past midnight this morning.

CFI-A Lesson 10 (Final)

Once again, I went to the airport to finish lesson 10. Today's list of maneuvers was super short: Soft Field Take-off, Steep Turns, and Chandelles.

The Soft Field Take-off continued to be a nusiance today. I think part of the problem is the difference between the way I learned to do them and the way my instructor expects to see them demonstrated. I've always converted the high speed that is gained while low to the ground (in ground effect) into altitude by pitching up rather sharply once achieving the proper speed. My instructor wants me to pitch up to much less. This just feels wrong to me. I'll do some more reading and I imagine I will need to change the way I do them from now on.

Steep Turns started a bit rough, but once I entered the turns with coordinated rudder input, bank, and power, the rest came very easily. My problem before was that I was waiting to put in rudder inputs and that set off a chain reaction of corrections that aren't necessary when entered correctly.

My Chandelles are pretty close to standards, but I'm still pitching up a little too soon and not maintaining bank angle during the first 90 degrees of the maneuver. It's just a matter of better coordination on my part and this will be solved, too.

Coming back to the airport, we decided to simulate a bug in the pitot tube by covering the airspeed indicator. I used power settings and pitch attitudes to get the desired performance I needed for each leg of the pattern. I told my instructor we were at 65 knots on short final, based on the feel of the controls. He uncovered the airspeed indicator and I was right at 65 knots. Pretty cool.

I think flight instructing is a lot like walking and chewing gum at the same time. It just doesn't come natural to try to focus on two things at once - flying the maneuver perfectly and talking to the 'student' about the key points of the maneuver and how to correct errors that might occur. It just takes practice. For me, it takes LOTS of practice. :)

CFI-A Lesson 10 (Part 2)

Today I re-did lesson 10. I covered all the areas that I was found to be weak in from the previous attempt at lesson 10. I had expected to do this over the weekend, or perhaps yesterday at the latest, but my latest instructor had an incident in an airplane on Saturday and is no longer on active status as an instructor. He's fine, but the plane is damaged and he must take remedial training before continuing as a flight instructor.

I made a plan covering my weak areas and went out this afternoon to finish it off. Unfortunately, I still struggled with two items. The first was my Soft Field Take-off. I let the plane's pitch rise too sharply after leaving ground effect, so I need to demonstrate it again. The second was Steep Turns. I had difficulties maintaining altitude properly when turning to the right. I don't know if it is a right seat issue, but it is rather frustrating.

So, sometime soon, I'll be going out to do these two maneuvers once more; hopefully to the satisfaction of my instructor - whoever he/she may be.