strange plane in palmdale

While out and about doing errands after voting last Tuesday, Mike noticed what he thought were two planes flying extremely close to each other. But as they turned in what appeared to be perfect tandem, it became clear that it was just one plane… and a very strange looking one at that. It looked like someone had simply hooked two planes together. It was flying over Plant 42, and we were about two miles away, so we did the only thing we could do… we put the errands on hold and buzzed over to BJ’s Corner to see what this thing was. We only had to wait a few minutes before it came back around and flew over our heads. (The photos were taken with our small Canon, so they aren’t very large or detailed.)

The plane reminded us of the Voyager from years ago, so it’s possible it’s an experimental aircraft.

It kind of looks like two planes holding hands.

After the flyby, we buzzed home and got the big Canon with the wonderful new zoom lens and hurried back to BJ’s Corner. Mike kept a lookout with his binoculars for several minutes hoping the plane would make another round, but it never did. I guess we were lucky we saw it when we did and had our little camera with us to get these photos.

 

 

 

space shuttle chasing

We’ve been space shuttle chasing since we moved to the Antelope Valley in 1985. It started when Columbia was moved down a local street on its way to Edwards Air Force Base after being refurbished at Plant 42. It was quite a sight to see!

That’s Jeffrey standing under Columbia’s wing.

In the following years we had the opportunity to see space shuttles fly by as they left Plant 42 and flew over BJ’s Corner (a local plane-watching patch of desert that is a front-row seat to every flight from Plant 42).

And then there was the time we went to Edwards AFB with my brother to see this space shuttle:

Then last Friday we were out chasing Endeavour on its last flight. We were in Rosamond, right outside Edwards AFB, when it took off.

As soon as it passed by us, we hopped in the car and headed down the 14 towards the fairgrounds. With a lot of luck and a little bit of speeding, we got there just in time to get these shots:

Our space shuttle chasing days are now over, and it’s very sad to see that program end, but we feel lucky that we lived here while they were flying and were able to get photos of some of them.