The photos below show our location at the far edge of the enormous parking lot labeled the "public viewing area" of Rogers Dry Lake. It is from here that the general public is allowed to view the shuttle landing at Edwards AFB. It was dawn on the morning of May 8, 1989 - which was a cool, clear Monday morning. There were tens-of-thousands of other aviation fans that had driven in from all across the country to share the brief, silent experience with us.

These next few photos show the early morning view of Edwards AFB across the great expanse of the dry lake bed. In the middle photo, you can make out multiple aircraft about to take off on the concrete runway. In the last photo, you can see the 747 mothership transport aircraft, the large NASA hangar and the mate / demate assembly unit. Above and behind these are the buildings and the parking lot where Ed and I would stake out the Columbia the following January.

These next five photos show some of the various aircaft that fly in and out during a typical day of flight test. The first two show a pair of Air Force flight-test Vought A-7 Corsair IIs. The next two are of an Air Force flight-test Douglas F-4 Phantom II. The last is of an Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tanker. We observed these jets, as well as F-16s and the STA (Shuttle Training Aircraft) for hours as we waited for the shuttle to come in, which arrived around noon.

The photo below is a montage of two photos, which show the difference that a fenceline can make in the middle of Rogers Dry Lake. To the left are thousands of RVs and thousands of people. To the right, an almost endless expanse of empty, flat, hard-packed, historical sandy dirt. (view this full screen - for impact)

These last two images are composites of sequential photos that I call "G Scott Panoramas". They aren't the best samples of this technique, due to the extreme lighting conditions (DAWN) at the time, but they offer a unique perspective when properly displayed. To best view them, select the image and then slect "click to view full screen" and ensure that you view the image full size. By scrolling left and right on this huge image, you can almost feel like you were there