I did a walk through of one of the SCA's at the Moffett Airfield airshow. Two things you don't see in this great video. The SCA's had a rather large pump in the middle of the interior which carried liquid to stabilize temperatures in the orbiter while being ferried. The second, and my favorite thing is a rather official looking stenciled warning on the fixing point for the strut connecting the Shuttle. It reads: "ATTACH ORBITER HERE NOTE: BLACK SIDE DOWN Somebody at NASA has a sense of humor.
What an amazing workhorse is the Boeing 747 - flying with a 78 tonne Space Shuttle on its back! So much more air drag and weight! Thanks Paul again for your commentary and videoing making this a really interesting presentation.
Awesome aircraft!! I had the pleasure to work on both Shuttle Carrier 747s, N905NA and N911NA and was part of the team that accomplished the Engine Pylon Attachment Reinforcement Service Bulletins while they were based at Marana, Arizona.
I was up and close to one that landed at my army base in the late 90's. I got a nice picture of it with the Shuttle. Then when the shuttle Discovery was being brought to Dulles I got a picture of it on final approach to Dulles international. Iconic aircraft carrying an iconic space craft.
We here in Houston were devastated when NASA decided not to give us one of the remaining Space Shuttles, and are still bitter over how politics influenced where they would be retired. But getting the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft was a good consolation price, and the Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston have done an amazing job turning a replica shuttle that was used for astronaut training into a very realistic mock-up and incorporating it into the entire display. I think that it is now a more thorough, interactive experience than what it would've ended up being with an actual Space Shuttle, but it still would've been nice to get one of them.
The space shuttle Endeavour was not built in Texas, but in California, in which it began its journey back to KSC. So it makes sense that it was brought back home to where it once built.
Discovery, being the queen of the fleet, was always destined for the Smithsonian. Florida was a natural choice, which is how they got Atlantis. California is as equally logical, being the birthplace of the Shuttles. That leaves the head-scratcher of New York City, which can only be explained away as 'tourist trap'. Honestly, Enterprise would have been a good fit for California, as she was the test article for the fit check at SLC 6 at Vandenburg AFB as well as all her active flight missions were conducted in California. That would have freed up Endeavour. Of course, if it were not for NASA's infamous managerial complacency, there would have been two more orbiters to display.
It could be argued that Houston, Huntsville and Michoud were already amply rewarded in pork thanks to your respective Senatorial clout. In retrospect, the Shuttle program cost entirely too much in men and treasure while achieving entirely too few of the things it set out to do. But hey, it did put a few thousand lucky people's kids through college...
I saw both Columbia and Challenger twice when being ferried. The first time was during USAF basic training at the end of 1983. We were marching back from just finishing the obstacle course when we heard the 747 engines and our flight was halted. We watched it until it was out of sight. The other times was when I was stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB. The base was a stopover and refueling stop.
I've seen this plane in a Tennessee visit one Summer day. What a Beautiful, flying Laboratory!! It was still in service then. Lovely. It was a sight to behold such a huge, manmade bird!!!
Thanks for sharing this video. I was working in Jersey City when the shuttle carrier flew right over us in order to give Lower Manhattan a close up view. It was fascinating hearing those engines roar while being buzzed by a 747 with the Shuttle on top.
I hope you enjoyed your stay in Houston during your visit to this aircraft at Johnson Space Center. As a resident I take visitors to tour the shuttle and 747 carrier craft. It is spectacular and fun to visit during the mild Houston winters. This exhibit is also halfway from downtown Houston to the beach in Galveston.
What a wonderful machine. Such a versatile aeroplane. Joe Sutter and his team did an outstanding job making the 747. If I'm quick hopefully I get to fly on one again as a pasenger.
There's Korean Air and Lufthansa if you want to fly the 747-8i. Pratt and Whitney engines were exclusive on the 747-100 and the SP. GE and Rolls Royce engines were offered on the 200, 300 and 400 series.
Flown on 747s a handful of times. Whatever flavor British airways had in the early 90s (747-400 I'm assuming) I traveled as an unaccompanied minor and they let me board the plane first and the pilot came down and gave me a tour of the cockpit it was pretty awesome.
I can’t believe it myself. I just have thoughts to myself like, what happens to future cargo plane operators? I know they have a 777F model. Just seems like the future will need more 747’s to do job that no other aircraft can.
Those jet engines may not be as efficient or quiet as current models but are by far the coolest looking and will forever be my mental image of what a jet engine looks like. Thanks again for taking us on a tour as some of us couldn't if we wanted to due to health things.
Add another notch to the legacy of the Queen of the skies. This beatiful Heavy proven to be the most versatile platform ever to slip the surly bonds of Earth.
Very interesting video. My son and I toured this aircraft about one month ago during a visit to the JSC and I have to admit I learned a lot of things about it from your video that I missed while walking through it! We’ll done.
6:35 if you want to see the shuttle being released from the 747 for a glide test, there is a video titled: Space Shuttle Enterprise 1st Test Flight August 12 1977
You’ll never find attention to detail missing from any of your videos. I found this thoroughly informative as always. Thank you. Many questions answered
Wow....I had totally forgotten that the space shuttles for a while, used these big gals for flying around. I only remember them being launched on the side of rockets !
They were always launched by a rocket. The SCA was used to ferry the Shuttle from the landing site back to Cape Canaveral for the next launch. And the SCA was used for the glide flight tests with the Enterprise test airframe.
They did yank some parts out, as spares for SOFIA (the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) a 747SP with a telescope pointing up out of a sliding roof.
@@BogeyTheBear Still, at least the rest of it didn't end up being turned into Coke cans, which was what I was worried about when I first heard of them being cannibalized.
The other SCA is parked outside the NASA facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. Palmdale is where the Space Shuttle Orbiter vehicles were constructed and there was an Orbiter Mate/Demate Device at Site 1 of Plant 42 where they could be installed onto the SCA.
space center houston is so fun, if you pass by Ellington airfield every few hours you would’ve caught a glimpse of F-16s taking off and if you’re lucky perhaps a coast guard helicopter too
I was going to add a few things about the 747 SCA. With its range, the SCA obviously couldn't cross the Atlantic in a single hop with the Space Shuttle attached! It had to stop at least twice on the way over to Europe. The Space Shuttle that toured Europe was the prototype, the Enterprise. It toured around the continent in 1984 and 1985(?). When NASA was generally finished using the Enterprise for various fit checks of hardware (attachment to the ET and SRBs, test of the crawler and launch pad facilities with a "full-up" shuttle stack using the Enterprise in place of the Columbia), Enterprise was used as the centerpiece of PR campaigns. Besides its use as an international ambassador (I think they flew the Shuttle on the SCA through Europe and possibly Asia), the Enterprise was used as a static backdrop for President Reagan's speech on the occasion of Columbia's fourth and final orbital test flight in 1983. The Enterprise was possibly used as the backdrop instead of Columbia due to the fact it DIDN'T carry any volatile, highly toxic fuels in its spaceframe. You don't want to poison the leader of the country! (They had at least 2 technicians KILLED on the launchpad on the eve of the Columbia's first test flight because of a coolant or fuel leak from that Shuttle.) If you recall, the Shuttle was handled by technicians in hazmat suits immediately upon landing because of all the toxic fuels and liquids used by the Orbiter's electrical cooling systems as well as the unspent rocket propellants still in the RCS system. [They had to purge the surviving shuttles of all toxic materials and remove anything potentially health-threatening prior to bailing those flight vehicles to museums. I'm sure safety-proofing those orbiters was very expensive and cost millions of dollars for each vehicle.] The end of Columbia's final testflight was a unique occasion because I believe it may have been the only time the Enterprise, the Columbia, AND the Challenger were in one place! [The three Shuttles were NOT posed together; Challenger merely flew over the base where Enterprise and Columbia were landed. Enterprise was carried by the SCA to Edwards and demated with the special Shuttle crane. I believe the alternate SCA (and NOT the SCA used to transport Enterprise to Edwards) was used to transport Challenger.] The Challenger was flown over Edwards Air Force Base on its delivery to Kennedy Space Center for its first orbital flight. I think the Columbia was captured (on the ground) in a photo along with the Challenger on the SCA on its delivery flight to Kennedy Space Center. After the promotional tours, Enterprise was formally retired in 1985 and sat in a Dulles airport hangar for at least 15 years only being removed to test an emergency arrester landing barrier for the shuttle program; it transferred to the National Air & Space Museum's Dulles annex in the early 2000s (2003?) and later to the Intrepid Air, Sea & Space Museum when the Smithsonian exchanged the Enterprise for the Shuttle Discovery. They looked at refurbishing the Enterprise twice into a full-up Shuttle (circa 1979 and 1986) but that didn't happen because it was less expensive to build a new Shuttle out of existing spares than to entirely disassemble Enterprise and send all pieces back (very expensive shipping bills!) to all the subcontractors to have them refit to full (STRONGER) orbital standard. It wasn't just the lack of piping and rocket engines that kept Enterprise grounded. They reinforced the spaceframe and changed aspects of the internal frame design for the Columbia. To be frank, only the Discovery and Atlantis were much alike among the six built orbiters; they were built close together, and completed within a year of each other. (I think each Shuttle required 3-4 years to build and cost approximately $2 billion each in mid-1980s currency.) The other shuttles were constructed at least 2-3 years apart. The shuttle design evolved through the manufacturing of each vehicle so no 2 orbiters were exactly alike! Columbia was the heaviest flight vehicle and Endeavour was the lightest despite higher-capacity fuel and oxygen tanks as well as an integrated landing brake chute. When the shuttles flew on the SCAs, they avoided transporting the shuttles in bad weather. To fly through a rainstorm (remember, the ceiling was 15,000 ft for the SCA with the Shuttle attached!) would have at least damaged the heat shield tiles on the Orbiters. The Shuttle Intrepid on the back of the SCA in Houston, TX is NOT a flight vehicle. [This fact WAS mentioned in the video but it bears repeating; only Enterprise, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour are true space shuttles. Pieces of the destroyed Challenger and Columbia are now on display at the Kennedy Space Center.] It's a replica (mostly a hollow shell) built for the Johnson Space Center visitor's facility. With only four existing and intact space shuttle vehicles, the museums and facilities that lost bids for the flight vehicles had to content themselves with replica shuttles. There are at least 3-4 full-scale replica shuttles that I'm aware of. Pathfinder is another replica (originally a simple metal weight later refinished to resemble the actual flight vehicles more closely) used to test the launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center when the Enterprise wasn't available. There's another replica, Inspiration, in storage in LA but it's in pieces from what I understand. That display piece will be lucky if the LA city council remembers they're holding it in storage within the next 10 years!!! There's yet another Shuttle replica (full-size) at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH. That replica was built around one of the training units (a full-scale reproduction of the Shuttle's crew cabin) used during the Shuttle program. There's more than one crew cabin trainer but that's the only training unit I'm aware of incorporated into a full-scale spaceframe replica.
There is also another 747 SCA at the Palmdale Heritage Airpark and I am honored to have seen it besides the Space Shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. They are going to build the new Air and Space Center next door in three years.
It's a paradox: When loaded with a shuttle orbiter on the back, the SCA was the slowest, least efficient 747 in the sky... ...with the shuttle removed, the same aircraft was essentially the greatest hot rod of all 747s.
I was lucky (Very luck) to sit in the pilots seat of the Space Shuttle Discoverys Orbiter. A friend was retiring after many years of working in the Shuttle Program & he convinced the powers to be to let me go in briefly. Got a picture if you want me to email it to you.
Great video, I’d only add that the SCA really only flew at 15,000’ - at that height the temperatures aren’t nearly as cold as you mentioned. Also the CG was pretty optimal, especially with the slight lift benefit of the orbiter (minimal, but still.) At the end of the day, the plane was drag-limited and not really weight limited. Oh also they didn’t remove fuel to save weight - the performance with an orbiter attached was so minimal (especially given their low cruise altitude) that they needed a lot of fuel for any given flight (vs a standard 747 of the same type.)
Still loving your videos still just as great and informative as day one! Going to Duxford in 3 weeks time looking forward to it! If you forgot to take pictures of anything let me know and I'll send them over x
Excellent tour Paul as always very interesting and informative I was interested that they use pig iron as a counterbalance instead of the depleted uranium that was probably used when this 747-100 was manufactured... Cheers mate 👍
I really appreciate how you pause the video on the parts you are talking about that need to be seen for more than a few seconds. Great little series on this program!
That was amazing, one of your best yet. I’d never seen the inside of the SCA. I wish you had taken a close up of the rear mounting points on the SCA to the shuttle, as they are marked with the warning “Mount Black Side Down” as a joke.
@@PaulStewartAviation absolutely. If you ever find yourself across the pond on the east coast near Pittsburgh & fancy some fabulous local cuisine, lemme know. They just broke ground on the major renovation of KPIT, the 1st U.S. airport to be named Airline Transport World's Airport of the Year, so there's a lil incentive. Anyway, I'd love to talk shop over a Primanti's sandwich & gravy fries w/a fellow AVGeek if you have the time. Safe travels man.😉✌️
Boy, you got around ‼Don't know if you're headed there, (I was) but near Orlando, you can get a private tour of the currently closed Fantasy of Flight facility, supposed to be the largest private aircraft collection there is, and of course, there's NASA Kennedy out of the coast, which IMO is at a different level to Houston. Actually, at Tampa, you can also do a demo flight in an Icon A5, a light sport amphibian. (FoF has a Short Sunderland that used to fly out of Rose Bay to Lord Howe, bought from RNZAF, Ansett stripped her of her turrets)
haha yes it was 4 weeks of incredible travel around air and space museums, and some covid. I did look at Kennedy but just ran out of time but I'll plan to go there next time. Now I'm back in Australia with over 350gb of footage to edit which I'm slowly working through :)
@@PaulStewartAviation I can understand that. I did 4-weeks of aerospace from Oz as well but never even touched the West coast as you did, and I was dog tired by the end. Enjoying your work :)
@@MrJames_1 I can fully relate. I actually forgot about the Evergreen museum so I had to fly back to the west coast from Washington DC for two nights. For most of the trip I was either filming at museums, researching for the next day of filming or waking up at 0400 to catch an early flight. I was almost glad that I caught covid as I was forced to relax somewhere and travel insurance paid for the longer stay. :)
@@PaulStewartAviation Ha ha nice. I actually saw 'the goose' in Long Beach back in the 90's but would like to see her again in her new home. In 2017 a mate and I drove all the way, for a month, starting from Pheonix, eventually to Orlando then back up to Dayton and exited through DC then NY. Both in our late 50's, in the USAF museum, we saw an older 'glide' by on a mobility scooter. I'm getting one next trip!
When the Sca was planned to fly the shuttle around Los Angeles I mention it that he should take pictures. Oh my cameras broken. I'll take pictures of the next one. I explained there won't be any more ever. He actually bought a new camera and went up on the roof across the street from his house in silverlake. Got absolute stunning photos of the SCA with the shuttle and the T38 chase planes with the hollywood sign in the foreground.
![Eminem - Temporary (feat. Skylar Grey) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZaK9Wi5ho0o/mqdefault.jpg)
I did a walk through of one of the SCA's at the Moffett Airfield airshow. Two things you don't see in this great video. The SCA's had a rather large pump in the middle of the interior which carried liquid to stabilize temperatures in the orbiter while being ferried.
The second, and my favorite thing is a rather official looking stenciled warning on the fixing point for the strut connecting the Shuttle.
It reads:
"ATTACH ORBITER HERE
NOTE: BLACK SIDE DOWN
Somebody at NASA has a sense of humor.
What an amazing workhorse is the Boeing 747 - flying with a 78 tonne Space Shuttle on its back! So much more air drag and weight! Thanks Paul again for your commentary and videoing making this a really interesting presentation.
I was lucky enough to see this aircraft at Stansted in 1983 with the Enterprise attached. I still have photos of it.
Awesome aircraft!! I had the pleasure to work on both Shuttle Carrier 747s, N905NA and N911NA and was part of the team that accomplished the Engine Pylon Attachment Reinforcement Service Bulletins while they were based at Marana, Arizona.
I was up and close to one that landed at my army base in the late 90's. I got a nice picture of it with the Shuttle. Then when the shuttle Discovery was being brought to Dulles I got a picture of it on final approach to Dulles international. Iconic aircraft carrying an iconic space craft.
Carrying an elephant on your back (or 20!!), is one thing... then trying to fly as well! Incredible stuff! Thanks Paul!
We here in Houston were devastated when NASA decided not to give us one of the remaining Space Shuttles, and are still bitter over how politics influenced where they would be retired. But getting the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft was a good consolation price, and the Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston have done an amazing job turning a replica shuttle that was used for astronaut training into a very realistic mock-up and incorporating it into the entire display. I think that it is now a more thorough, interactive experience than what it would've ended up being with an actual Space Shuttle, but it still would've been nice to get one of them.
The space shuttle Endeavour was not built in Texas, but in California, in which it began its journey back to KSC. So it makes sense that it was brought back home to where it once built.
@@LINJ638 I had no problem with that one.
@@joaquinperez9146 Uh huh..... the logic makes sense though.
Discovery, being the queen of the fleet, was always destined for the Smithsonian. Florida was a natural choice, which is how they got Atlantis. California is as equally logical, being the birthplace of the Shuttles. That leaves the head-scratcher of New York City, which can only be explained away as 'tourist trap'.
Honestly, Enterprise would have been a good fit for California, as she was the test article for the fit check at SLC 6 at Vandenburg AFB as well as all her active flight missions were conducted in California. That would have freed up Endeavour.
Of course, if it were not for NASA's infamous managerial complacency, there would have been two more orbiters to display.
It could be argued that Houston, Huntsville and Michoud were already amply rewarded in pork thanks to your respective Senatorial clout.
In retrospect, the Shuttle program cost entirely too much in men and treasure while achieving entirely too few of the things it set out to do. But hey, it did put a few thousand lucky people's kids through college...
I saw both Columbia and Challenger twice when being ferried. The first time was during USAF basic training at the end of 1983. We were marching back from just finishing the obstacle course when we heard the 747 engines and our flight was halted. We watched it until it was out of sight. The other times was when I was stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB. The base was a stopover and refueling stop.
I've seen this plane in a Tennessee visit one Summer day. What a Beautiful, flying Laboratory!! It was still in service then. Lovely. It was a sight to behold such a huge, manmade bird!!!
Thanks for sharing this video. I was working in Jersey City when the shuttle carrier flew right over us in order to give Lower Manhattan a close up view. It was fascinating hearing those engines roar while being buzzed by a 747 with the Shuttle on top.
I hope you enjoyed your stay in Houston during your visit to this aircraft at Johnson Space Center. As a resident I take visitors to tour the shuttle and 747 carrier craft. It is spectacular and fun to visit during the mild Houston winters. This exhibit is also halfway from downtown Houston to the beach in Galveston.
What a wonderful machine. Such a versatile aeroplane. Joe Sutter and his team did an outstanding job making the 747. If I'm quick hopefully I get to fly on one again as a pasenger.
A 747 is a nice plane to travel , because its size the “ ride “ is smooth .
There's Korean Air and Lufthansa if you want to fly the 747-8i.
Pratt and Whitney engines were exclusive on the 747-100 and the SP. GE and Rolls Royce engines were offered on the 200, 300 and 400 series.
Flown on 747s a handful of times. Whatever flavor British airways had in the early 90s (747-400 I'm assuming) I traveled as an unaccompanied minor and they let me board the plane first and the pilot came down and gave me a tour of the cockpit it was pretty awesome.
@@apolloniaaskew9487our two QANTAS 747-SPs were fitted with Royce RB211 turbofans.
I have worked at Boeing for the last 15 years. So sad to see the very last 747 moving through the factory. True queen of the skies. A legend
I agree. It is sad. 😢
I can’t believe it myself. I just have thoughts to myself like, what happens to future cargo plane operators? I know they have a 777F model. Just seems like the future will need more 747’s to do job that no other aircraft can.
It would be nice if there's a special ceremony for the Unfournate end of an icon in aviation. There's nothing that can match it's capabilities.
@@apolloniaaskew9487 I feel there will be one here at the factory for those of us who have worked on it
I remember when it started when I was 12 in 1969, exciting, and it lived up to it for its entire 50 year plus life.
Those jet engines may not be as efficient or quiet as current models but are by far the coolest looking and will forever be my mental image of what a jet engine looks like. Thanks again for taking us on a tour as some of us couldn't if we wanted to due to health things.
Add another notch to the legacy of the Queen of the skies. This beatiful Heavy proven to be the most versatile platform ever to slip the surly bonds of Earth.
WOOOO NEW PAUL STEWART VID JUST DROPPED
Pretty cool that it had the sky interior. Adding a bit of style.
Very interesting video. My son and I toured this aircraft about one month ago during a visit to the JSC and I have to admit I learned a lot of things about it from your video that I missed while walking through it! We’ll done.
Glad you enjoyed the extra info :)
6:35 if you want to see the shuttle being released from the 747 for a glide test, there is a video titled:
Space Shuttle Enterprise 1st Test Flight August 12 1977
You’ll never find attention to detail missing from any of your videos. I found this thoroughly informative as always. Thank you. Many questions answered
I appreciate that!
@@PaulStewartAviation I had an airfix model as a kid and I always wondered just how it worked.
If it's a video about a 747, LOVE IT!!!!! thanks Paul
Thanks paul for the guided tour of this iconic & beautiful 747 & space shuttle combination 😊
I remember seeing this flying over Manchester when I was 7, quality👍🏻
I remember seeing the SCA and shuttle fly low over Montreal when it was coming back from that European tour.
Wow....I had totally forgotten that the space shuttles for a while, used these big gals for flying around.
I only remember them being launched on the side of rockets !
They were always launched by a rocket. The SCA was used to ferry the Shuttle from the landing site back to Cape Canaveral for the next launch. And the SCA was used for the glide flight tests with the Enterprise test airframe.
Great video, I'm so glad that both the SCAs ended up getting preserved, rather than being scrapped for parts.
I fully agree!
They did yank some parts out, as spares for SOFIA (the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) a 747SP with a telescope pointing up out of a sliding roof.
@@BogeyTheBear Still, at least the rest of it didn't end up being turned into Coke cans, which was what I was worried about when I first heard of them being cannibalized.
This is simply amazing! Thank you for covering the SCA with such an indepth video! Another great work and commentary!
I wish 747 never retire and i wish Concorde fly again
So iconic! Amazing job mate, would love to check this one out one day.
Thanks Paul... I have a patch for the Orbiter test flight Enterprise..👍✈️🇳🇿
I've really bean waiting for this one. Thank you, mate.
My pleasure!
The other SCA is parked outside the NASA facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
Palmdale is where the Space Shuttle Orbiter vehicles were constructed and there was an Orbiter Mate/Demate Device at Site 1 of Plant 42 where they could be installed onto the SCA.
Amazing that the fan is still turning after all these years without lubrication so easily!
Labyrinth seals; virtually zero friction and lubricated for life.
Say what you like about 21st century Boeing but, wow these guys used to build incredible planes!
That is correct. The black boxes are always [safety] orange.
space center houston is so fun, if you pass by Ellington airfield every few hours you would’ve caught a glimpse of F-16s taking off and if you’re lucky perhaps a coast guard helicopter too
Thank you for all these in-depth tours! Cheers!!
Absolutely fantastic video. I have always been fascinated by the 747 carrying a space shuttle, this video answered a lot of questions.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Wow that's awesome! Great video! Sad the upper deck was closed!😎🤙🔥
God bless USA & England. Brothers forever. 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇺🇸🇬🇧🇺🇸🇬🇧
I was going to add a few things about the 747 SCA.
With its range, the SCA obviously couldn't cross the Atlantic in a single hop with the Space Shuttle attached! It had to stop at least twice on the way over to Europe.
The Space Shuttle that toured Europe was the prototype, the Enterprise. It toured around the continent in 1984 and 1985(?).
When NASA was generally finished using the Enterprise for various fit checks of hardware (attachment to the ET and SRBs, test of the crawler and launch pad facilities with a "full-up" shuttle stack using the Enterprise in place of the Columbia), Enterprise was used as the centerpiece of PR campaigns. Besides its use as an international ambassador (I think they flew the Shuttle on the SCA through Europe and possibly Asia), the Enterprise was used as a static backdrop for President Reagan's speech on the occasion of Columbia's fourth and final orbital test flight in 1983.
The Enterprise was possibly used as the backdrop instead of Columbia due to the fact it DIDN'T carry any volatile, highly toxic fuels in its spaceframe. You don't want to poison the leader of the country! (They had at least 2 technicians KILLED on the launchpad on the eve of the Columbia's first test flight because of a coolant or fuel leak from that Shuttle.) If you recall, the Shuttle was handled by technicians in hazmat suits immediately upon landing because of all the toxic fuels and liquids used by the Orbiter's electrical cooling systems as well as the unspent rocket propellants still in the RCS system. [They had to purge the surviving shuttles of all toxic materials and remove anything potentially health-threatening prior to bailing those flight vehicles to museums. I'm sure safety-proofing those orbiters was very expensive and cost millions of dollars for each vehicle.]
The end of Columbia's final testflight was a unique occasion because I believe it may have been the only time the Enterprise, the Columbia, AND the Challenger were in one place! [The three Shuttles were NOT posed together; Challenger merely flew over the base where Enterprise and Columbia were landed. Enterprise was carried by the SCA to Edwards and demated with the special Shuttle crane. I believe the alternate SCA (and NOT the SCA used to transport Enterprise to Edwards) was used to transport Challenger.] The Challenger was flown over Edwards Air Force Base on its delivery to Kennedy Space Center for its first orbital flight. I think the Columbia was captured (on the ground) in a photo along with the Challenger on the SCA on its delivery flight to Kennedy Space Center.
After the promotional tours, Enterprise was formally retired in 1985 and sat in a Dulles airport hangar for at least 15 years only being removed to test an emergency arrester landing barrier for the shuttle program; it transferred to the National Air & Space Museum's Dulles annex in the early 2000s (2003?) and later to the Intrepid Air, Sea & Space Museum when the Smithsonian exchanged the Enterprise for the Shuttle Discovery. They looked at refurbishing the Enterprise twice into a full-up Shuttle (circa 1979 and 1986) but that didn't happen because it was less expensive to build a new Shuttle out of existing spares than to entirely disassemble Enterprise and send all pieces back (very expensive shipping bills!) to all the subcontractors to have them refit to full (STRONGER) orbital standard. It wasn't just the lack of piping and rocket engines that kept Enterprise grounded. They reinforced the spaceframe and changed aspects of the internal frame design for the Columbia. To be frank, only the Discovery and Atlantis were much alike among the six built orbiters; they were built close together, and completed within a year of each other. (I think each Shuttle required 3-4 years to build and cost approximately $2 billion each in mid-1980s currency.) The other shuttles were constructed at least 2-3 years apart. The shuttle design evolved through the manufacturing of each vehicle so no 2 orbiters were exactly alike! Columbia was the heaviest flight vehicle and Endeavour was the lightest despite higher-capacity fuel and oxygen tanks as well as an integrated landing brake chute.
When the shuttles flew on the SCAs, they avoided transporting the shuttles in bad weather. To fly through a rainstorm (remember, the ceiling was 15,000 ft for the SCA with the Shuttle attached!) would have at least damaged the heat shield tiles on the Orbiters.
The Shuttle Intrepid on the back of the SCA in Houston, TX is NOT a flight vehicle. [This fact WAS mentioned in the video but it bears repeating; only Enterprise, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour are true space shuttles. Pieces of the destroyed Challenger and Columbia are now on display at the Kennedy Space Center.] It's a replica (mostly a hollow shell) built for the Johnson Space Center visitor's facility. With only four existing and intact space shuttle vehicles, the museums and facilities that lost bids for the flight vehicles had to content themselves with replica shuttles. There are at least 3-4 full-scale replica shuttles that I'm aware of. Pathfinder is another replica (originally a simple metal weight later refinished to resemble the actual flight vehicles more closely) used to test the launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center when the Enterprise wasn't available. There's another replica, Inspiration, in storage in LA but it's in pieces from what I understand. That display piece will be lucky if the LA city council remembers they're holding it in storage within the next 10 years!!!
There's yet another Shuttle replica (full-size) at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH. That replica was built around one of the training units (a full-scale reproduction of the Shuttle's crew cabin) used during the Shuttle program. There's more than one crew cabin trainer but that's the only training unit I'm aware of incorporated into a full-scale spaceframe replica.
All very interesting, thank you!
Awesome, thank you 😊
You’re welcome
What a beauty!
There is also another 747 SCA at the Palmdale Heritage Airpark and I am honored to have seen it besides the Space Shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. They are going to build the new Air and Space Center next door in three years.
Looks awesome Paul I’ve seen videos of the SCA and I can’t wait to video to see it someday!
Awesome video, Paul. We are so lucky these museums are available to the public.
I look forward to your vids so much, did not disappoint! Have a fruit juice for me 🥂
Well done. Interesting as always. This is about as close as I will ever get to one of these.
Thank-you for another great video!
cheers
This is the coolest video ive seen!
Great video from you Thank you for showing me!👍
You’re welcome
@@PaulStewartAviation 😀
Thank you very much, Paul, for sharing your awesome documentary with us.
Glad you enjoyed it
The plane and shuttle flew over my house in Bossier city Louisiana in the 80s about ti land at BAFB.
Good one Paul. More information than on most documentaries. Thanks for posting!
Nice I was in this aircraft back in November
Loved the video. Thanks for all the great info!
Glad you enjoyed it!
With a rough calculation in cruise the 747 must haved used about 20 plus ton of fuel an hour in full configeration carriying a shuttle.Yikes.
It's a paradox: When loaded with a shuttle orbiter on the back, the SCA was the slowest, least efficient 747 in the sky...
...with the shuttle removed, the same aircraft was essentially the greatest hot rod of all 747s.
Bravo! Thanks!!
My goodness the landing gear bay looks like a hangar for other planes lmao its so massive
The landing gear compartment is like the size of my whole apartment already 😭😫😂
Great vid, such a shame the upper deck was closed, it's what made the 747
I was lucky (Very luck) to sit in the pilots seat of the Space Shuttle Discoverys Orbiter. A friend was retiring after many years of working in the Shuttle Program & he convinced the powers to be to let me go in briefly. Got a picture if you want me to email it to you.
What an incredible experience that would have been!!
Great video, I’d only add that the SCA really only flew at 15,000’ - at that height the temperatures aren’t nearly as cold as you mentioned. Also the CG was pretty optimal, especially with the slight lift benefit of the orbiter (minimal, but still.)
At the end of the day, the plane was drag-limited and not really weight limited.
Oh also they didn’t remove fuel to save weight - the performance with an orbiter attached was so minimal (especially given their low cruise altitude) that they needed a lot of fuel for any given flight (vs a standard 747 of the same type.)
PUl as always terrific !
Great video thanks for posting Paul. Personally I will never get enough 747 and wish for its return to passenger service and production.
very unique aircraft setup, thanks for sharing!
Great video, thanks Paul. Amazing solution to an extraordinary problem.
Very welcome
I was just there a few weeks ago!
another brilliant video, well done thank you Sir. cheers from NZ
Glad you enjoyed it
Another cool video Paul! Thanks.
Thanks for another great video Paul
Another great video Paul! So good seeing inside this beauty!
Glad you enjoyed it
Still loving your videos still just as great and informative as day one! Going to Duxford in 3 weeks time looking forward to it! If you forgot to take pictures of anything let me know and I'll send them over x
Didn't know, until now, that there were two!
very interesting one, thanks, Paul.
GREAT VIDEO 👍
Excellent tour Paul as always very interesting and informative I was interested that they use pig iron as a counterbalance instead of the depleted uranium that was probably used when this 747-100 was manufactured... Cheers mate 👍
I really appreciate how you pause the video on the parts you are talking about that need to be seen for more than a few seconds. Great little series on this program!
Load Clear 👍
That was amazing, one of your best yet. I’d never seen the inside of the SCA. I wish you had taken a close up of the rear mounting points on the SCA to the shuttle, as they are marked with the warning “Mount Black Side Down” as a joke.
I believe that that text is covered by the shuttle when it’s attached :)
@@PaulStewartAviation You may be right. I'll check my photos and let you know. :)
REALLY NEAT VID!! Thx for all your content.😉✌️
Glad you like them!
@@PaulStewartAviation absolutely. If you ever find yourself across the pond on the east coast near Pittsburgh & fancy some fabulous local cuisine, lemme know. They just broke ground on the major renovation of KPIT, the 1st U.S. airport to be named Airline Transport World's Airport of the Year, so there's a lil incentive. Anyway, I'd love to talk shop over a Primanti's sandwich & gravy fries w/a fellow AVGeek if you have the time. Safe travels man.😉✌️
I saw it do a low fly-by at Manchester (Ringway, MAN) after (I think) the Paris Air show.
Damn, awesome content!
I want to Hug that 747
Very interesting! really stable camera work too!
Hi Paul thank you for interesting video amazing aircraft
My pleasure!
And another thing Paul, American Airlines wasn’t the only airline where NASA bought the 747 and used it to transport a space shuttle.
Yep two 747s were purchased
COOL 😎
It doesn't "carry" it "ferries"! Helluuuuu! 😱🙃😁🤪🤣👍✌
Ohhh just felt a little wee pop out 😬🤣 fantastic video 😎
Welcome to Houston. Hope to maybe see a video of the Saturn 5?
Thanks and yes there will be :)
Boy, you got around ‼Don't know if you're headed there, (I was) but near Orlando, you can get a private tour of the currently closed Fantasy of Flight facility, supposed to be the largest private aircraft collection there is, and of course, there's NASA Kennedy out of the coast, which IMO is at a different level to Houston. Actually, at Tampa, you can also do a demo flight in an Icon A5, a light sport amphibian. (FoF has a Short Sunderland that used to fly out of Rose Bay to Lord Howe, bought from RNZAF, Ansett stripped her of her turrets)
haha yes it was 4 weeks of incredible travel around air and space museums, and some covid.
I did look at Kennedy but just ran out of time but I'll plan to go there next time. Now I'm back in Australia with over 350gb of footage to edit which I'm slowly working through :)
@@PaulStewartAviation I can understand that. I did 4-weeks of aerospace from Oz as well but never even touched the West coast as you did, and I was dog tired by the end. Enjoying your work :)
@@MrJames_1 I can fully relate. I actually forgot about the Evergreen museum so I had to fly back to the west coast from Washington DC for two nights. For most of the trip I was either filming at museums, researching for the next day of filming or waking up at 0400 to catch an early flight. I was almost glad that I caught covid as I was forced to relax somewhere and travel insurance paid for the longer stay. :)
@@PaulStewartAviation Ha ha nice. I actually saw 'the goose' in Long Beach back in the 90's but would like to see her again in her new home. In 2017 a mate and I drove all the way, for a month, starting from Pheonix, eventually to Orlando then back up to Dayton and exited through DC then NY. Both in our late 50's, in the USAF museum, we saw an older 'glide' by on a mobility scooter. I'm getting one next trip!
great video!
Yooo I was just there 2 weeks ago!
There’s another Shuttle carrier plane which is the 747SR-46 (Shorter Range) which happens to be a former Japan Airlines.
When the Sca was planned to fly the shuttle around Los Angeles I mention it that he should take pictures. Oh my cameras broken. I'll take pictures of the next one. I explained there won't be any more ever. He actually bought a new camera and went up on the roof across the street from his house in silverlake. Got absolute stunning photos of the SCA with the shuttle and the T38 chase planes with the hollywood sign in the foreground.
You didn't see the sign that says "attach orbiter here, black side down"
Love the video do you think 🤔 you can fly southwest
In the beginning I thought the Orbiter landed on the 747 and then gets delivered where necessary.
That's why it's called a high bypass turbo fan lol