Rotry, do you live in Australia? Apollo 13 landed in the Pacific (from Wikipedia):

ETA: Looks like Rotry does indeed ive in Australia. Answered me own question by looking at his introductory post. And welcome!

Someone, Clarke maybe, said that anyone who denies our greatest achievement during the Cold War (or all of US history, if not humanity) should be branded an unAmerican communist sympathizer. Stupid commies.

Okay, I'll give him one more chance.

But I'm telling you, if he doesn't get back to us by 2012, my original judgement stands.

I don't think anyone here is going to complain about someone's firsthand account of Apollo 13's re-entry!

Welcome aboard, hope you stay around!

He may be struck by Niburu at that time, though...

Not this Clarke, and not the other Clarke Sir A. C. AFAIK

The "stupid commies" as you call them celebrated the Moon landings as a great achievement of humanity. Quite correctly too.

Jon

Thanks for the welcome. I'm finding BAUT to be very interesting even though I'm rather daunted by the obvious firepower of many of the members. Also sometimes at a loss finding may way around.
Peter Gabelish

I do live in Australia but saw the re-entry from a commercial flight southbound to Auckland (probably a 727).
The capsule arced out of sight over the eastern (port) horizon. The aircraft commander was in radio contact with mission control and reported the opening of the parachutes in what seemed a ridiculously short time after the re-entry burn up which was so violent that the survival of the astronauts seemed impossible.
Thanks for your interest and your welcomes.
Peter Gabelish rotry

The aircraft commander was in radio contact with mission control and reported the opening of the parachutes in what seemed a ridiculously short time after the re-entry burn up which was so violent that the survival of the astronauts seemed impossible.

Heh. That reminds me of the time I saw the Shuttle re-entering, the first time it landed in Florida. It was a dawn landing, and I lived in Tucson, Arizona, 2,000 miles west of the Cape. I got up at ~4am, walked one block south to get a clear view, watched it, then walked one block back to my dorm and switched on the TV just in time to see the final approach and landing.

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The descending CM first deploys a drogue parachute that stabilizes it. It looks more violent than it is.

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Clavius Moon Base

The violent part was the fiery vaporisation of all the material in the modules (except the CM of course} as viewed from about 25,000 ft. There were orange fragments spearing away from the main trajectory which I presumed were large non aluminium and magnesium components which presumably did not vaporise.

ans to Jay Utah

Hi Rotry:

Thanks for the first-hand description of the event you saw. Very cool.

As for navigating around the forum, I've found a couple features that have made my life a lot easier. The first is the "USER CP" link near the top of the screen (below the BAUT logo). If you click on it, it will list all the threads that you are participating in that have new postings. If you click on one of those threads, a "view first unread" link appears in the upper left (near the "post reply" button). That will help you jump to the new messages.

I'm sure there are lots of other useful features that I haven't diecovered.

Anyway, welcome, and enjoy your stay.

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I'd be careful starting on this forum with that post.
Sorry, the name caught my eye, struck me as odd.

Ans. to Extravoice.
Thanks for the welcome. I hope to hang around for a fair while. Also thanks for the navigation tips.
rotry

Presumably st0rm is no relation to you! Apparently a post-and-run, and resurrecting a four year old thread to boot.

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On the plus side we got to meet Rotry. Welcome Peter

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--Bender

Welcome, Rotry. If you look up the National Geographic reports on Apollos 8 and 11 you'll see photos and descriptions of re-entry observations that match yours for Apollo 13. The issues are:

Apollo 8: "A Most Fantastic Voyage", Lt. Gen. Sam C. Phillips. National Geographic, Vol. 135, No. 5, May 1969, pages 593-631. A description of re-entry as observed from Pan Am flight 812, Fiji to Hawaii, on page 624.

Apollo 11: "The Flight of Apollo 11: 'One Giant Leap for Mankind'", Kenneth F. Weaver. National Geographic, Vol. 136, No. 6, December 1969, pages 752-787. "Blazing return" photos on pages 780-81.

Then there's an Apollo 11 observation closer to home for you, from a Brisbane to Honolulu Qantas flight:


Passengers on a Qantas flight from Brisbane to Honolulu early today had a bird's eye view of the Apollo 11's re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.

The pilot of the jet, Capt. Frank A. Brown, gave a running commentary on the scene. It was relayed to radio stations throughout Australia.

Capt. Brown began his description when the plane was flying at 39,000ft over the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in mid-Pacific.

"There's a little cloud above us but we are going to get a perfect view of Apollo 11," he told the 82 excited passengers.

"We have about two minutes to go, the capsule is about 500 miles from earth now. It has just crossed the east coast of Australia above Mackay, Queensland.

"The astronauts are travelling at six miles a second. A staggering speed, isn't it?

"We expect to see an object behind us in just over a minute and a half. It will be brighter than a bright star."

"At that time it will be something like 500 miles away."


Capt. Brown asked the passengers to move to the left side of the plane and requested them to share windows to get a good view.

Then he shouted: "Here they come on the left, one object brighter than the other. See the two of them, one above the other. One is the command module, the other is the service module. They both weigh six tons.

"They are picking up heat now. The bottom one is leaving an incandescent descent trail. See it flashing. See the trail behind them — what a spectacle. You can see the bits flying off. Notice that the top one is almost unchanged while the bottom one is shattering into pieces. The part that is disintegrating is the rocket service module, the top one is the command module.

"It looks to me like a pretty normal re-entry. Mathematically that seems perfectly sound and the timing is correct. It looks real good to me.

"In my opinion that was the spectacle of a lifetime."

After the re-entry the passengers celebrated with champagne and Capt Brown presented them with certificates bearing a reproduction of the medallion left on the moon by Armstrong and Aldrin.
—Cable Service


Moderators – There's no way to link to this on the internet because it's from an original, but with full accreditation, as above, quoting it like this for this purpose is considered fair use in this corner of the planet.