So...the shuttle landed in California right?.....how do they get it back to Florida?

 

On top of a very big, outrigged 747.

 

OMG!! Tell me that is a photoshop! Are you seroius? That is the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life!

 

lol, welcome to 1976!

 

honestly that is how they do it.

 

Thats nuts! Howd you like to fly that top heavy thing. "yeah...its not bad other than the fact you've got a space ship on top..."

 

ever see the bigining of MoonRaker? That's where it came from.

 

And it cost just over a cool million from what I understand to transport.

 

I remember back in the 70's when it was a big deal on TV to watch the old glide tests of the Enterprise, which is now in a museum about 7 miles from my house, along with the Concorde, the Enola Gay, and the Dash-80... That museum is kick-*** right at Dulles. We are in the landing pattern there. They had an event there the other day and P-51's A-10s, a C-17, Corsair, T-38, experimentals, and much more were coming in right over the dealer. We also get huge Russian transports in all the time too, and every now and then WWII bombers and the like. All the odd stuff like the A380 lands on west the runway right over the dealer..You can actually see the Udvar-Hazy center observation tower through the trees.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/udvarhazy/

 

I went to high school in Palmdale, Ca. during the '70's, and saw that very thing flying from Edwards AFB.
It was the plane with the shuttle on top and a few other planes flying near it.

 

They use the same mounting points as used with the orange liquid fuel tank to attach the shuttle to the 747. It'll fly nonstop from California to Florida with military fighters escort the whole way. I believe NASA and the FAA also institute a no fly zone around the 747 and it's escorts as well.

 

I think it costs $1.7 mil to ship it back

 

piggyback on 747 and its amazing to see.

 

i remember reading about that!
man i want to fly those A-10's sooo bad or F/A-18 super hornets or (lol) the new F-22

 

I had seen it piggybacked in the dc area a couple times as a kid, and when they donated the Enterprise to NASM in the 80's it did some laps around the DC area and we saw it land at Dulles, man that was a long time ago. The Enterprise then sat outside for like 15 years and you could see it when flying out of the airport(along with WWII bombers, SR-71, and some other goodies they had there until the center opened in '03). You can see it in the background in this NASM pic, they used to have a bunch of stuff just sitting outside:



for you youngins

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/...Enterprise.htm

If you look, some of the leading edge sections are removed for analysis for the investigation of the Columbia's re-entry disintegration.

 

i was there in person and saw the shuttle blew up

 

The Russians transported their shuttle the same way.

 

the russians have a shuttle? I thought they were still using rockets?

EDIT: I guess not.....

 

This the "Dreamlifter". It's a modified 747 that's used to transport the wings and body sections of the 787 form Japan where they're built to the Boeing plant in Everett Washington for final assembly. (Yes, I work for Boeing).

 

thats awsome!