CC and I had some time today so I decided to take her on a tour. Florida is home to KTTS, also known as the the NASA shuttle Landing Facility. It is 15,001 feet of pavement on Cape Canaveral. Back in the day space shuttles landed here but now it is just a runway.
The airspace over the runway is part of a restricted area but it has not been active much lately. Even when it was, with permission you could usually swing by for a tour.
We headed South IFR and passing Daytona we let the controller know we wanted the shuttle tour. On the hand off to Orlanda approach he asked our intentions. I requested a visual to KTTS and told him we would go missed and would like to continue IFR back North to 28J.
The controller cleared us as requested, we were told to stay our of R-2932, the restricted airspace East of the runway and to not touch the surface. Tower was closed so we switched to advisory frequency and commenced our tour.
I stayed high so we could have a steep descent to get a feel for what the shuttle pilots see. The standard descent rate for jets and stabilized approaches is 3 degrees. We flew 7 degrees nose down from 2000 feet to get a better feel and the shuttle came in at a 20 degree angle, 7 times a standard approach.
We leveled off over the runway going close to 180 mph, it takes about a minute to fly the entire runway. This is a lot more than we need. We can easily land in 1000 feet and departed in 600 today. You get the view of the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) on the way by and they have a shuttle or a mockup on the ramp too.
On the way back we were routed right over Daytona Beach airport which is home to the Daytona speedway. Clouds got in the way of the picture but you can see how it is tucked next to the runways. Good land use putting noisy things together.
The airspace over the runway is part of a restricted area but it has not been active much lately. Even when it was, with permission you could usually swing by for a tour.
We headed South IFR and passing Daytona we let the controller know we wanted the shuttle tour. On the hand off to Orlanda approach he asked our intentions. I requested a visual to KTTS and told him we would go missed and would like to continue IFR back North to 28J.
The controller cleared us as requested, we were told to stay our of R-2932, the restricted airspace East of the runway and to not touch the surface. Tower was closed so we switched to advisory frequency and commenced our tour.
I stayed high so we could have a steep descent to get a feel for what the shuttle pilots see. The standard descent rate for jets and stabilized approaches is 3 degrees. We flew 7 degrees nose down from 2000 feet to get a better feel and the shuttle came in at a 20 degree angle, 7 times a standard approach.
We leveled off over the runway going close to 180 mph, it takes about a minute to fly the entire runway. This is a lot more than we need. We can easily land in 1000 feet and departed in 600 today. You get the view of the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) on the way by and they have a shuttle or a mockup on the ramp too.
On the way back we were routed right over Daytona Beach airport which is home to the Daytona speedway. Clouds got in the way of the picture but you can see how it is tucked next to the runways. Good land use putting noisy things together.
No comments:
Post a Comment