Does the Space Shuttle land upwind like all fixed wing aircraft or does it not care?

My flying instructor said she flew across the runway at complex 39 in a Cessna and it took her 10 minutes to get from one end to the other. It takes us ten seconds fly end to end at our runway at Elstree so I guess ours is a bit shorter.

at the end of its journey it does land like a plane: though from what i understand its basicaly a dead stick landing meaning it glides onto the runway without any power.

It also needs a ton of runway, 2 miles minimum IIRC.

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Runway 33/15 at Nasa's Shuttle Landing Facility is 15,000 x 300 ft. Quite a lot longer than most. Compare that to your airfield at Elstree. Most major international airport have a runway length of around 10,000 to 12,000 ft.

Another thing that might interest you is the glideslope of the Shuttle. Most aircraft use a glideslope of 2 or 3 degrees. The Shuttle enters final approach at 12,000 ft at 300kts with a glideslope of 18 degress. It's pretty scary to watch that thing coming in.

And yes it is dead stick. After the deorbit burn, reaction control thrusters are used until they are shutdown at about 50,000 ft. Then it's control surfaces only for the rest of the way in.

The Orbiter will land with the most favorable combination of headwind (good) and crosswind (bad).

She flew a Cessna over KSC? When will she get out of Leavenworth?

From Landing the Space Shuttle at KSC:

I saw the first night landing at KSC. It was awesome. Pitch dark around the SLF, emphasized by the eight one billion candlepower floodlights at the end of the runway - they thoughtfully didn't turn on the ones at the other end, the direction the crew would be looking on final 8) - and the PA speakers announcing "Orbiter now over Central Texas, 20 minutes from touchdown..." as helicopters buzzed around... The WHAM-WHAM of the sonic booms coming out of the night... and finally Discovery appearing like a ghost in the brilliant light at the threshold. Very, very cool.

We saw the shuttle land at White Sands and you could see that thing coming for quite a while. It has great aerodynamics, but it still dropped like a brick being escorted by T-38 chasers.

The flare angle looks way more pronounced than on a regular airliner. One of my favorite pastimes is to watch jets land (does that put me on a government enemies list now? <looks nervously around>). The way they seem to float down so gracefully is just amazing, even though I know how they do it, it still looks like what one of my instructors used to call PFM (pure f****** magic).

I like watching jets. I've been to Heathrow a couple of times for this purpose.

While I do love jets; it's the sound of radial engines that gets me running out of the house with the binoculars.

Never thought about this, so I just looked this up - the runway is oriented at 330degrees, so flying roughtly west to east as it usually does, it would approach from the north and turn 90 degrees south or approach from the south and turn 90 degrees north.

I can't imagine that winds are all that much of a factor either way though - a 20kt wind isn't as significant for a 300kt touchdown speed as it is for a 130kt touchdown speed.

Anyone do the shuttle re-entry (FULL re-entry) in X-Plane? www.x-plane.com

Actually the orbiter makes a 270 degree turn onto the runway heading as shown by the diagrams of recent ground tracks:

Here is the ground track from STS-103 (Discovery)

Also the touchdown speed is around 200kts. A 20kt wind is a difference of 40kts if you land with the wind. You ALWAYS want to land into the wind, especially if you are dead stick.

Another excellent (free) simulator is Orbiter. With it you can try a complete shuttle mission or practice your flights to mars.

Yes, that KSC runway is loooooooooooong...got to sit next to it in a bus and marver just how long it is. Neal Boortz had a picture on his website once, that he took from his little aereoplane as he flew above the KSC runway. This was long before 9/11; apparently, the way the rules worked then, as long as there wasn't some official reason not to (like something's being launched, or the Shuttle's landing), all you had to do was ask KSC ATC for permission to fly the length of the runway.

Spacewriter, if you want to see something that looks like BFM (that's the 'black' version of PFM), watch a C5A Galaxy take off some day. That's not aerodynamics, that's levitation...

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Once, at an airshow, I saw a C-130 Hercules run the length of the runway at max throttle. The pilot kicked in the flaps and full up elevator. It went straight up and leveled off at 500 feet. After landing, he did it again except this time he kicked in the JATO units! This time, he didn't level off until he was a mile up!

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The approach to Tampa Int. crosses I-275 and I frequently watch big jets glide down very low over my stopped car in evening rush hour. It amazing to watch the Boeing 777 come in to land. Because of its large size, it is actually farther away than it seems, which gives it the illusion that it going very slowly. There are few things more beautiful than watching a big jet trimmed out with full flaps gliding down to land.

Something else that is funny to see is a 777 and a Cessena 182 land synchronously on parallel runways. Then the illusion of speed is broken since the 777 is going over twice as fast as the Cessena.

Once upon a time I was sitting on the ramp in a cessna 150 waiting for clearance to taxi out to the runway (Norton AFB 1975). There was a C-5 that had just landed filling up the taxi way. As it rolled past I looked over at my instructor and said "wwwwwowwwwww."

Airliners.net is a good site for landing photos. Like this one
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/027599/M/

Holy crap! Is that real? If so thats my kind beach, although my wife wouldn't agree.

I think it is real. If you check out the main site and go to the most popular of all time you can see others at the same location. The runway end is right next to the beach.

This one is from an angle where you can see the runway
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/211543/M/

Or here is one from the side
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/201517/M/
and from right underneath
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/199562/M/

I'm guessing that's the "economy vacationers" beach?

Although that's where I'd be everyday. Wouldn't a night landing be special?

Here is the whole airfield:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/200087/M/

Notice: no taxiways. The aircraft have to use the wide parts to turn around and exit the runway at the touchdown point.

Dimensions: Runway 09/27, 7054 x 148 ft (hope your thrust reversers are in proper working condition!)

Edit: Here is a guy who flew the approach in MS FS2004 (nice screen shots).

I guess they don't do much para-sailing there...

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J Pax

totally excellent web site! I could spend hours here...

even for an aircraft junkie like me, this is amazing...

thanks for the link!


=D> =D> =D>

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Not much reason for overshoot or undershoot.

Check out this Royal salute

it does look that way!!

and on top of that they seem to move so much slower than any other plane...it's incredible...

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