Mission to Cape Canaveral '99
Day 1 - Thursday, November 4, 1999

This was the initial travel day of the trip, on a flight from San Jose to Orlando with a stop in Salt Lake City. On the first leg from San Jose to Salt Lake, I spotted lots of familiar landmarks like Lake Tahoe, Reno, Pyramid Lake and the Black Rock Desert (far to the north.) Then there weren't any more landmarks recognizable to me until the Great Salt Lake. (You can't miss that one.)

It was kind of odd stopping in Salt Lake City. On a business trip the previous week, I had seen SLC from the planes (nonstop San Jose to Boston and back) both directions (day and night.) But since the plane was continuing to my destination at Orlando, I didn't get off in Salt Lake.

On the second leg, I didn't expect to recognize any landmarks at all. I kind of guessed passage through Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and lost our location in Texas. Then flying over one large city, I recognized it as New Orleans because the shape of Lake Ponchatrain looked just like on the map from news coverage I had seen of a hurricane a few months earlier.

From there, the flight was over water on the Gulf of Mexico. At the altitude we were at, some sight of land was always visible at the northern horizon so we were probably 200 miles offshore. We crossed the Florida coastline at Tampa and then I was back to familiar landmarks as we followed I-4 past Lakeland (with its distinctive star-pattern runways at its airport) toward Orlando. Disney World was easy to spot. I could tell we were going for a straight-in approach without a holding pattern, as we approached Kissimmee and turned straight toward our runway. The other passengers next to me were glad to hear that. But one who asked was surprised to find out I'm not from Florida, with all the landmarks I recognized from the air. (I just think vacations are too short to spend time getting lost so I read the map before going!)

First thing after arriving in Orlando and getting the rental car, I stopped at the AMSAT lab. I was proud of myself for remembering my favorite radio station from the previous visit in 1997 and the back-roads to circumvent the toll booth on the Bee Line Expressway. :-)

(1536x1024 528K) (500x337 19K)	Just after takeoff from San Jose, the usual Bay Area low stratus covers the floor of Silicon Valley out to the Santa Cruz Mountains.
(1536x1024 415K) (500x337 11K)	From 7-8 miles in altitude where the Boeing 757 cruises, you can see a flat horizon in all directions, but not quite the curvature of the Earth. In this north-facing view from the San Jose to Salt Lake leg of the flight, sharp-eyed readers can see Pyramid Lake, Nevada. And further behind it, the lighter-brown coloration is the Black Rock Desert playa, where I've been camping several times for high-power and amateur rocket launch events.
(1536x1024 444K) (500x334 21K)	The AMSAT Phase 3D satellite getting spin balance testing at the AMSAT Integration Lab in Orlando, Florida.
(1536x1024 471K) (500x334 23K)	A view of the top of Phase 3D while it has stopped spinning.

Back up to the Mission to Cape Canaveral '99 main page

Copyright (c) 1999 Ian Kluft