Low and Slow, With Unlimited Visibility, at 4 gph

By Scott Hughes

I just returned from 4 days of very rewarding -- and frustrating -- search for shuttle debris. I know how many people want to be involved in the search [for parts of Columbia]. As of right now I think that a mass PPC search would be better served in two to three weeks, and probably go on over the next couple of months. Next week, NASA will try some new things to locate important clues and pieces. I have been talking to several friends, (and new acquaintances) that are anxious to help. As an American I just want to say how proud I am of our citizens and how everyone comes together in times of need. Everyone wanted to help. In particular I am very proud of our Powered Parachuting community.

So here is what I found when I got there: I couldn't find the NASA official that invited us to come up. Our invite was as simply as, "Those things sound like an asset we could use." Once we got there we hit a brick wall. Doesn't matter what the reason, but I must tell you that I was big disappointed.

After much waiting the local authorities took us in and started showing us quadrants to search. As we were about to head out the Sheriff told us that all searches needed to be coordinated through John Rivers. I caught up with John and told him that our group of 12 was ready to serve. He mentioned that we would have to drive to Lufkin, (30 miles away) and be briefed. They took off to perform a mission and headed to Lufkin. When we arrived it was quite interesting to talk to the Air Boss at the airport, (Forest Service). They didn't know what to do with us.

We hung around there, hoping to get some type of briefing. At this point things didn't look good for flying, so I got the word out to those who were going to come down the next day, and most of those that were here, left. They finally invited us to an Air Ops meeting. There were 8+ different agencies represented. I must tell you that was a very interesting meeting to sit in on. After all was said and done, they still didn't have a clue what to do about us. But the good news was they put us on to some additional people to talk to at the main operations building.

It was about 10:00 at night when we arrived at the main operation building. We got lucky and met a Forest Service employee and she took us right up to the NASA brain room. Now, that was quite impressive. After talking to several people they put us in contact with one of the landing coordinators from Florida. He was wonderful and so helpful. It cleared up who's who in the zoo. FEMA is in charge of the overall operations (which we knew) and everyone gets a FEMA badge. However, after that, it seems to change everyday. I found it interesting that the EPA was the big cheese in charge. It appeared they deferred air ops to NASA. After many meetings with NASA, FBI, EPA, FEMA, County Sheriffs, Forest Service, DPS, fish and game, etc, officials we finally got to some of the people that help us to help them.

An Astronaut Leads Part of the Search

The people we met working with NASA and other governmental agencies were so very kind and intelligent. The next day we finally hooked up with the current Air Boss... astronaut Jeff Ashby. His air boss duties will go on for a few more days. He was the commander on Columbia a few years ago and just landed in October on the shuttle Atlantis, STS112 (shown). He was the flight commander. [He's also in the photo above, in the center of the gang --ed.]

If I may deviate just a little... it was so very interesting to talk to him about his flying experiences. Particularly interesting to me was his experiences on re-entry. I was wondering how violent the re-entry was going from Mach 28 on down. It really surprised me when he said it was very smooth until the hit mach .99 to .95 just before landing over Florida. Slowing down through the sound barrier is only time they feel bumps. I got him to talk about the heat shield and the orange glow you can see out the front of the windshield. He said you can still see through it. He also talked about the the plasma that looked like St. Elmo's fire on a GA plane but was thicker, and looked like fire running instead of static electricity.

I think all of you would have loved to visited with him. He wanted to use us, but his problem was Powered Parachutes are such an unproven asset. He met with his boss and they agreed to give us two areas to search. The first one was quite a ways up wind. There had been no reports of debris in the area which was a little strange. We got to the Rusk Airport and began planning our attack. We decided to load up and only fly 2 planes to give us more eyes looking. It was a little disappointing that we didn't find anything. However that is just as important information as finding things.

The area that we were flying over was not the most friendly environment to be flying over. This a time that you want to make sure your preflight is thorough. We even had our buddies do a second preflight. Like they say, the rule of thumb to safe flying is, preflight, preflight, preflight.

Keep looking. It's out there.

The next day we flew with three planes and took-off at the Nacogdoches airport. We knew that there was debris right around the area because a fuel tank landed on the airport. The Deer lease that we were staying at (a 4000 acres hunting area) is where they had found some pretty interesting parts. The weather was a light overcast, but the winds were really nice. We were going to fly a box 8 miles out and 3 miles wide. I spotted the first thing that looked like debris. That got us excited because we knew then that we really could see debris through the tall trees from the air. All in all we had 12 hits that were photographed and GPS marked on our first flight.

We went back to the airport and planned our next flight. This time Don Howard stayed on the ground and he was going to help Henry Sunda look for some of the ones that we found. Steve Sprague and I took our next heading to begin our search. We saw Henry's truck pulling into the first sighting we found. We directed them to its location. We were so disappointed when they saw it was a garbage bag. They went to the next sight and it turned out to be burned trash. Number three was 20 yards away and it took me flying right on top of it for them to finally see it. This was a great find. It turns out to be part of the left wing (photo).

The rest of the day went on like that. All in all we had 12 confirmed locations with another 20+ possible. This was a 6+ hour day of flying. Flying at tree top level and always staying alert looking for debris can be quite taxing. I should add that I have 13 refrigerators, 2 water heaters, a school bus, and what looked like a '56 Chevy also to my credit. Steve got a bunch of bumpers and electric ranges. It is truly amazing what you can find out in "them thar woods."

The helo guys understood.

As we came in on the last flight of the day we announced to Nacogdoches traffic that we were a flight of two PPCs approaching runway 15. We came in over the numbers a couple a feet off the ground and made a left 90 degree turn over the taxiway. We announced our flight of 2 being clear of the active and made a right 90 followed by a left 90 which took us to our landing zone 300 yards away. All at a few inches off the ground. The guys in the Black hawk helicopter were cheering and jumping up and down. They loved that we could fly along inches off the ground. I told them that that is what I love about their helicopters.

We finally got a chance to talk to a couple of the pilots I know flying for John Rivers. It's a shame we couldn't have gotten together. We compared notes and shared ideas with each other. One of the things that seemed to work much better for us was to do strong "S" turns. It allowed the pilot to see the ground/targets area much easier.

All in all, it was great and personally rewarding to go and help out. I really hope that it works out that anyone that wants to help gets a chance in the next couple weeks and months.

[Scott Hughes, AFI, RCD, runs Chute the Breeze; he is a National Distributor for Hawk Wing Parachutes and Powrachute.]

FMI: www.flying101.com; www.hawkwings.com; www.powrachute.com; www.powerchutes.com