Warbird Information Exchange

The incockpit photo credited to Bill Bowers. Bill is a former F-4 Marine RIO. He has been an integral part of the Collings F-4 team since we learned that the aircraft would be released to us.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Grade 11 English class, sitting around with a weird feeling in my gut like something bad was going to happen; 30 minutes later the news broke.....



You gotta love blondes!...

gv

In '86 I was living in Pasadena, CA. That morning I was watching TV a little before the liftoff, but I had to leave to drop off my car at Firestone for repairs before arriving at work at 9:00 AM. When I left the car, I heard a radio for a few seconds talking about the Apollo 1 fire. I thought, "Why are they mentioning that now?" I walked to my work to find I was the only one there. About 9:15 my co-worker's uncle called and when I asked "Where is everybody?" he said matter-of-factly, "Didn't you hear? Shuttle blew up". I ran to the radio, and after listening for a few minutes, I went next door to the post office and asked if the flag could be lowered to half-staff and they told me to go ahead, so I did - turned out it was several hours before the official order to do so was given, but I thought it was the right thing to do at the time...

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Just inside of Terminal three at the H concourse of O'Hare airport was a small arcade. When the report came over the T.V. I was on a break from loading bags, playing of all things Space Shuttle Pinball.

Steve

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"Any excuse is good enough if you're willing to use it!"

I was 5, but remember my mom making me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and telling me to run into the living room to watch the launch. I knew something was wrong, when my mom gasped and covered her mouth, but didn't know what. I was only 5 but man I can remember that like it was yesterday.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Working on a model airplane at the time, listening to the radio before going to work. Watched it over and over on TV at work....

I was 21, living suburban Denver and working the closing shift at Mickey D's. I usually didn't get to bed before 4:00 am, so I didn't hear about it until I got up around noon (2:00 pm EST.) By then the TV had returned to regular programming. I was listening from the kitchen when a newsbreak came on, and I still remember my exact thought process...

TV: "Of course our top story..."

Me: "Geez, what's Khaddafi done now?"

TV: "The firey explosion..."

Me: "hmm..must have been a gas line break"

TV: "..of Space Shuttle Challenger."

I tripped over the furniture getting back into the living room..I remember actually shivering as I watched the video for the first time.

My uncle was working maintenance at Martin Marietta at the time, prime contractor for the external tank. When he got home, he said they knew pretty much right away it was a burn-through on the SRB. He told me the engineers had been getting live telemetry from the shuttle, and thought they'd lost their satellite link, since the feed just abrubtly ceased at T+ 00:73.

SN

I'm still amazed by how lightly the people responsible for making the decision to launch got off, especially those with ultimate responsibility...

Buck, was that in a MOA?

I watched the first post-Columbia launch while airborne in the Live Oak MOA in north Florida. I could see it clear as day from that far away....can't imagine what that must have been like only 30 miles away.

Randy, I can say this, A Shuttle Launch from 3 miles away looks like this and NOTHING I've ever seen in my 45 years in aviation matches it.

Mark H

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Fly safe or you get to meet me .......

My Sister watched it live on T.V. that morning. She could not sleep and got up to watch T.V. and caught the launch on a live feed out the West Coast. She saw it happen and decided to wake me up to show me what was going on, I remember telling her that it was normal to make all kinds of smoke and fire, but when she told me that the booster took off like fireworks in different directions, well, that is when I jumped out of bed to see it myself. The silence from the broadcasters war rather eerie.

When I got to school I was quite surprised how many people did not know about it until I told them. They set up a T.V. in the Library and before you knew it the place was packed.

RIP

I was 7 years old and home sick from school, I called my mom in and told her that it blew up was a very hard sick day for me!

I as standing in line at my school library watching it waiting to check out books. It was pretty disgusting--people pushed past me to get ahead while I watched it...

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Hi Randy,

No, it was just outside the Cape's Restricted area, part of which was lowered from 11,000' MSL to Ground Level on launch day. It was a great place to watch from, as long as you were very clear about the airspace boundaries. In the pre-GPS days, people often busted the Restricted area, and several launches were delayed as a result.

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Buck Wyndham
Editor, WarbirdAlley.com
Warbird Instructor Pilot

I got to watch one when I was a kid (aunt worked for NASA) and I have to agree. I have seen a number of rocket launches, and the shuttle beats all of them by far in any way i can think of. I still have dreams about it.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."