Also: Shoreham Update, Aero-Calendar, AUVSI, Fighter Pilots, André Borschberg, Airport Crimes, Drone Conference 

 

SpaceX, in the midst of a greatly accelerated launch pace, put two Falcon 9 Payloads into orbit, one of which was a reused first stage... AND then landed two first-stage boosters -- off opposite coasts. On June 23, 2017, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the BulgariaSat-1 satellite into orbit—the first geostationary communications satellite in Bulgaria’s history. This mission marked the second reflight of a Falcon 9 first stage, having previously supported the Iridium-1 mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in January of this year. Following stage separation, the first stage of Falcon 9 successfully landed on SpaceX’s East Coast droneship “Of Course I Still Love You,” stationed in the Atlantic Ocean -- under what were termed to be ‘challenging’ conditions. Sean D. Tucker is one of the best known names on the air show circuit, and for good reason. He has flown on the circuit for 40 years, racking up more than 26,000 hours in the cockpit. He currently flies the Oracle Challenger III when performing at air shows, an airplane that may one day soon hang in the Smithsonian. This past weekend, Tucker said that he’ll be retiring from solo flying next year. Having just turned 65, he said it's time to look at the next phase of his air show career. The FAA and the National Weather Service have been working jointly to retire the six (6) CONUS text Area Forecasts, while also directing users to utilize finer resolution graphical and digital weather forecast products. The CONUS FAs are a suite of products that cover very large geographical areas, have limited text size, cannot account for certain meteorological conditions and are updated only three times a day. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne!!!