So, Tif, what did you do today?

[tifosi77]

Oh not much.......

Spoiler:

..... just watched a plane with the f**king SPACE SHUTTLE on its back land at LAX.


Woo!

[ulf]

Awesome

[columbia]

I thought was going to involve harvesting your own sea urchin.

Nice pic....I bet that was cool to see.

[mac5155]

Or negotiating with a hostage in PGH.

sweet, though.

[PghSkins]

Flippin' sweet.

[JS©]

I thought you were gonna tell us something cool happened

Spoiler:

{opens spoiler tag} ok, that's cool! :thumbsup:

[FreeCandy44]

Kewl

[Kaizer]

you have all the fun

[llipgh2]

Neat!

[tifosi77]

More pics I took from the day.

Spoiler:

We were on Aviation Blvd. (map of the area http://goo.gl/maps/Ve0Hv), right by the northern edge of the Proud Bird restaurant's aircraft courtyard. (by the MiG-15)

SCA/Endeavour making a low pass over the north side of LAX. (about a mile from where we were standing) The aircraft dropped way down, perhaps 300 feet off the deck and flew straight down the north runways. Then it circled back past the Getty Center and into the lower San Fernando Valley before turning south down to Disneyland and then back up along the coast for photo ops by the RMS Queen Mary and the USS Iowa (i.e., a mile or so from my old house!) before coming back to LAX for another low pass.


A few shots of the SCA/Endeavour making the low pass over the south side of LAX. (about 500 feet from where we were standing) The chase planes flew almost directly overhead.




A couple shots of the crowd that had assembled. I estimate about 5,000 - 8,000 people crowded Aviation Blvd. (which runs directly behind LAX) in a 1-mile stretch between Imperial Highway and Century Blvd. After the second low pass, everyone abandoned the idea of staying on the sidewalk and simply moved onto the street, totally blocking traffic for about 20 minutes. The cops didn't bother doing anything, as it was calm and orderly; everyone was just super excited. I didn't post it online, but I got a shot of the formation to the south of us and I-105 is in the foreground..... people are stopped and standing on their cars watching events.



F/A-18D NASA chase plane with cameraman in the rear seat as the SCA/Endeavour lands just a few hundred feet to the north.


And then after the landing, we saw this little guy by the restaurant. Turns out, he's sorta the unofficial mascot of the Proud Bird and comes around every day.

[Chefpatrick871]

I actually got to see the same thing about 10 years ago when I was stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base, it is an amazing site to see in person.

[itissteeltime]

I saw this a couple months ago fly over DC. It was crazy, people just stopped on the roads and got out of their cars to watch. Everybodys head in DC just looking skyward. Very cool.