RememberedSky.com

Testimony of Pilot# 12

The whole history of the space program is part of moving on and making life better for people on Earth. I want to carry on their work on through the Shuttle, the Station, and the space exploration initiative. I think that’s the way I see it now, and that’s the way I will continue to feel, throughout this flight and, and even afterwards. Eileen Collins

Space Shuttle Endeavor comes to Los Angeles to retire to museum life.

James Tiberius Kirk, Where Are You?

Update and Re-post of Rememberedsky’s fourth offering on 21 September 2012

Ask any pilot, why or how they got into flying and you’ll find multiple answers, many will overlap but some will be unique, but all will be a personal thing long remembered. Continue reading →

Testimony of Pilot# 11

An airplane is just a bunch of sticks and wires and cloth, a tool for learning about the sky and about what kind of person I am, when I fly.  An airplane stands for freedom, for joy, for the power to understand, and to demonstrate that understanding.  Those things aren’t destructible.

Nothing by Chance, Richard Bach

SPAD XIII  cockpit (c. 1918) as flown by Eddie Rickenbacker in the 94th AERO Squadron and the F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter “glass” cockpit (2018)

Once I determined to make Trap’s story of the F4U  Corsair development and test the centerpiece of Chapter Two, it wasn’t hard to pick other aviators and their stories with similar experiences in the advancement of aviation – problem was who to leave out. Three in particular were difficult to exclude (Rickenbacker, Doolittle,Yeager).

But in the parsing of stories I found some intriguing pictures of the cockpits of the aircraft used to push the ole envelop. So here in keeping with Chapter One’s pictures as stories here is an offering of history via the cockpit. TINS: Continue reading →

Testimony of Pilot# 10

In 1990, Eileen Collins was only the second woman to graduate as a test pilot and be selected as a NASA astronaut. She became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle mission during the Discovery’s rendezvous with Mir space station in 1995 and became the first female commander of a US spacecraft on Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-93.

Her fourth and final mission was to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) as commander of Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-114 which heralded the “return to flight” of the Space Shuttle after the Columbia disaster. Discovery launched on July 26 and spent almost 14 days in orbit. During this mission, Astronaut Eileen Collins became the first person to fly the Space Shuttle through a 360 degree pitch maneuver so astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) could check the belly of the Shuttle and make sure there was no threat from debris related damage on reentry.

The thoughts of Eileen Collins related to the Space Shuttle return to flight seem most appropriate as testimony in the Chapter entitled Harnessing the Sky. TINS

Selected Comments of Eileen Collins, STS-114 Discovery Mission Commander

From

From NASA Interviews and Speeches

Continue reading →

Testimony of Pilot #9

the greatest pilot I ever saw.- Chuck Yeager

Hoover’s “the finest acrobatic pilot we’ve seen in our lifetime”  -Astronaut Wally Schirra

greatest stick-and-rudder man who ever lived – Jimmy Doolittle

Diversity of experience over their careers is certainly a characteristic of the aviators featured in this second offering of “harnessing the sky” stories within the testimony series. Bob Hoover taught himself aerobatics as a teenager, as a fighter pilot shot down a FW-190, served as a prisoner of war with aviators from various countries/services, escaped and stole a German fighter, as an Air Corps test pilot, among other missions was back-up pilot and chase for Chuck Yeager’s supersonic run in the Bell X-1, developed bombing techniques for the F-86, taught them in Korea while flying combat missions as a civilian, went to US Navy Test Pilot School, carrier qualified and did multiple carrier oriented tests, tested the F-100, and by demonstration convinced the Air Force it was the right plane for the Thunderbirds. Then he got famous. His airshow performances in the P-51 and Shrike Commander made him a household name.

If aviators like Yeager. Schirra and Doolittle consider him the “best” then his testimony just might have some value. TINS

Cockpit to Cocktail Party: The Bob Hoover Story

From

Interview with Bob Hoover (2002)

By Kathleen Bangs (re-posted with her permission)

It was a lucky break. In 2002, across the wide expanse of a Florida trade show conference hall, I recognized an unmistakable aviation icon. A lanky figure, under his signature Panama hat, moving as a swarm of fans buzzed around him. It was Bob Hoover. Continue reading →