I remember watching the first launch from Kennedy Space Center back in '81 on the TV in Mr Stephensons 'Craft Design and Technology' class way back when I was 10, but don't recall ever hearing about it making a flight and/or landing in the UK. Sadly nothing about a test launch-flight-landing in the UK. The page mentions 5 manned 'free' flights launched from the 747 carrier, but they are all noted as taking place in the US in 1977, and Enterprise appears to have only made those 5 free flights. During that time it remained bolted to the top of the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft." "From May 16th to June 12, 1983, Enterprise was ferried on a 28 day European goodwill tour. Kennedy Space Center page about Enterprise(OV-101) There is a Kennedy Space Center page which makes passing mention of the shuttle Enterprise being on a European tour through May and June 1983: The author of the page states the shuttle and carrier made one low and slow fly-by, and did not land. Now the thing is, I've tried to look up details about this online, but all I could find were reports of a similar exercise where the 747 flew overhead with the dummy space shuttle attached to it.īest I could come up with was this link, dated 2010, but otherwise of unknown provenance, purporting to show a couple of pictures taken from a spot near manchester Airport on 7th June 1983, of Enterprise piggy-backing on her 747 carrier:Įnterprise over Manchester 1983 web page. There was an eerie quiet when this space shuttle passed over us, and indeed, quite an odd atmosphere amongst the crowd of people who gathered there to see it. Someone said it was a practice run so if the real space shuttle had to make an emergency landing when it came back to earth, it could go there due to that airfield having a runway long enough. It was launched from the top of a Boeing 747 and allowed to glide over Manchester airport on it's way to RAF Fairford. One day, I was visiting him and we went along the road to watch a dummy space shuttle glide past the airport.Īs far as I can ascertain, this was a dummy version of the shuttle, with no engines. Back in the day before the terror threat put a stop to a lot of this, plane spotters used to gather at the runway boundary fences at weekends and watch the planes taking off and landing. In 1983 a mate of mine lived in spitting distance of Manchester Airport. Inspired by the 'False Memories' thread, I decided to post this here in case anyone else can confirm whether this really happened or not.
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