Adventures of a Quantum Cowboy

Gordon Fullerton performs a final fly-by in a NASA F/A-18.

What a happy coincidence that I brought my new telephoto to work today… it happened to be Gordon Fullerton’s last flight at Dryden. Check out the blurb from the PACE office below:

Long-time Dryden research pilot and former astronaut Gordon Fullerton will fly his last NASA flight in a Dryden F/A-18 this morning, Dec. 21. Fullerton, who is retiring Dec. 31 after a more than 49-year career with NASA and the Air Force, and Dryden research pilot Jim Smolka are scheduled to take off about 9 a.m. on a 75- to 90-minute pilot proficiency formation flight with another Dryden F/A-18 and a Dryden T-38.

Fullerton and the other pilots are tentatively slated to make a low-level formation flyover of Dryden prior to landing. An announcement will be made over Dryden’s public address system about 5 minutes before the flyover occurs. Upon taxiing into the Dryden ramp, Gordon will be honored with a water-arch provided by two Fire/Rescue trucks from the Air Force Flight Test Center. All members of the Dryden family are encouraged to come out on the back ramp behind B/4800 to greet Fullerton upon his return.

A retired Air Force colonel, Fullerton was assigned to NASA’s astronaut corps in 1969 after the Air Force Manned Orbital Laboratory program to which he had been assigned was canceled. Fullerton served on the support crews for the Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17 lunar missions, and was later assigned to one of the two flight crews that piloted the space shuttle prototype Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Test program at Dryden. He then logged some 382 hours in space when he flew on two early space shuttle missions, STS-3 on Columbia in 1982 and STS-51F on Challenger in 1985. He joined the flight crew branch at Dryden after leaving the astronaut corps in 1986.

At Dryden, Fullerton was project pilot on a number of high-profile research efforts, including the Propulsion Controlled Aircraft, the high-speed landing tests of space shuttle landing gear components installed on a modified Convair 990 jetliner, the C-140 JetStar Laminar Flow Control, F-111 Mission Adaptive Wing, F-14 Variable Sweep Flow Transition, X-29 vortex flow control, the Russian Tu-144LL supersonic transport and Dryden’s F-18 Systems Research Aircraft. He also was project pilot for a number of research efforts involving Dryden’s now-retired B-52B mothership, and piloted NASA’s DC-8 science laboratory on world-wide missions. Fullerton also served as Associate Director of Flight Operations and chief of the flight crew branch in recent years.

At long last, photos from the airshow almost a month ago. I hope they don’t disappoint. March 31st, Naval Air Weapons Station, Point Mugu California.

Mist rolls off the Pacific as a crowd mills around a B-52, the mainstay of American bombing power for over half a century.

Reflections on a century dominated by American air superiority.

The USAF’s new F-22 Raptor represents the very cutting edge in fighter technology. Enemies won’t even realize it’s there before they’re dead. Note the afterburner trail and impressive separation highlights from the moisture.

The F-22 pulls a high-G maneuver and sheds vapor-saturated flow.

F-15 Eagle, low and roaring.

The Air Force Heritage Flight. A WWII-era P-51 Mustang flanked by the late cold war era F-15 Eagle and the 21st century F-22 Raptor. A Vietnam-vintage F-4 Phantom on the back of that diamond would have closed that formation nicely.

The Air Force Thunderbirds buzz the crowd in formation.

Darin is an avid hang glider, and a couple weeks ago he invited me to come out and take a look at how they did things at the launch site. Naturally, I brought the camera along. There is a hang gliding site just a couple miles down on Avenue S, quite close to our house, which makes one more time I’ve been glad we moved so close to the mountains. Parking Darin’s ancient Accord on a field at the foot of the hills, we hitched a ride up to the launch site from Steve, a seasoned veteran hang glider with a Dodge Ram more capable of making the final stages of the steep, rocky, dirt road ascent.

With a brisk 20 mph wind at the top, gusting to 35, the group of about 7 pilots and 4 observers and ground crew got to work setting up for the day.

Darin glances up from his work after assembling his glider.

It was crazy watching these guys just step off of a mountain into the air.

Darin dons his helmet and prepares for a final check.

Darin prepares for takeoff… one or two people are necessary to hold the giant wing down while a third holds the control wires in the center so that the pilot can make a final check before takeoff.

And he’s off! Darin takes to the skies as Mike ducks under the wing after letting it go.

I nearly fell off the mountain backwards taking this shot of Darin flying over me across the sun. If you look close there is a rainbow above him.

Another glider pilot prepares to take the leap of faith.

Yet another glider pilot takes off into the sky…

…and grabs some air over Palmdale.

All in all I had a great time. I’ll be sure to go out next time Darin flies, hopefully to get some landing shots too. Hmm… with some work some of these might make good desktop wallpapers.