Monday, May 23, 2011

Shuttle Launch from American Airlines Pilot


An AA pilot took this amazing cell-phone photo of the Shuttle Endeavor breaking above the cloud deck on her final voyage. - HLG

4 comments:

SleepyBobos said...

A commercial airliner would never get this close. I expect this is from the F15 Combat Air Patrol (CAP) flown during the shuttle launch.

SleepyBobos said...

I doubt this is from a commercial airliner. The F15 Combat Air Patrol (CAP) would not let anything get this close.

I expect the photo is from dedicated observation plane.

SleepyBobos said...

I doubt this is from commercial airline. It would be from a dedicated observation plane.

The launch has a combat air patrol, flown by F15s, that protects the launch and the surrounding airspace.

A commercial flight wouldn't get within hundreds of kilometres of the launch area.

HLG said...

I obviously did not take this photo, but the source claimed it was taken by a commercial airline pilot, which I can't discount if they had a long-lens. I was working in Miami once, and got to see a shuttle launch from there. You couldn't make out the vehicle, but could easily follow the plume to the northern horizon with the naked eye. - HLG