Tour of Triple Nickel's airplanes at Ellington
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Triple Nickel of JSCAS invited me along with others to tour some of the planes that he routinely flies at Ellington. This is Bob Taylor, Triple, and Ken Lester in front of the KC-134 otherwise known as the "Vomit Comet". It flies a pattern that allows 30 seconds of total weightlessness in the aircraft. |
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This depicts the flight pattern. |
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Inside the padded play area. |
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Triple and the Flight Engineer. They had just flown 77 parabola's for an experiment package. |
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This is a rack containing the experiment. They were testing application of the red gue that will be used to repair damaged Shuttle tiles in orbit. They have to practice applying the stuff to actual Shuttle tiles. |
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Some of the tiles with the gue hanging from them. |
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Here is where Triple works |
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Triples seat |
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Ken and Bob checking out the neat stuff... |
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This is a B-57 bomber that is used for high altitude tests. |
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Cool profile |
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Dave Nagler (Al Nagler's son) joined us for the rest of the tour. |
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Dave flew down from New York to pick up his new toy |
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Lotus |
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I hope he didn't bring much luggage... |
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This is the Guppy |
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It is HUGE!!! |
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The cockpit |
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Triple explaining the functions to us |
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This is taken from the pressurized door behind the cockpit facing aft. The front of the plane splits and pivots to the side for loading. |
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This view is from the back facing forward. They have carried 747 fuselage sections in here. Note in the front the smaller circle around the door. That is the size of the plane before they chopped it up and 'expanded' the body to it's current configuration. |
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Triple going down the hatch... |
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Can this thing really fly??? |
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This is one weird aircraft whether on the ground or in the air. |
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This is the loading platform that can even load itself into the cargo area. |
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Triple is pointing out the "trailer hitch" used when the plane is full and they have to pull a trailer. |
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Bob had to leave the party at this point. |
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This is a G-1 jet used to move various people around. |
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It is really nice on the inside... |
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You just have to love the T-138s lined up ready to go. |
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This is a maintenance hangar for servicing them |
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One ready to go |
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Up on jacks for service. |
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Inside the nose cone section |
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Us getting the tour |
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Triple explaining the various instruments and their functions |
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Where you don't want to be during take off |
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This is a G-2 that has been converted to a Shuttle Trainer |
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Us going in for a peek |
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The left side is normally configured to be identical to what is in the Shuttle Commanders seat. Triple flies on the right with normal instrumentation. Note the banks of computers that make the plane fly and react as a Shuttle would. |
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Me in Triple's seat |
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Finally we ended up in Triple's office at the end of the day. It was a great tour that really showed me the cool toys that those guys get to play with... |