Quote:

Quote:

The crew of all three of those airplanes are required to fly a certain number of hours per month to stay "proficient" and capable of flying missions. The supposed photo op was scheduled during the crew's required flying hours.


1. Put them in a simulator. It's a lot cheaper, and you can fake situations to see if they really know where the rarely-used gauges and controls are.

2. Those rules are devised by pilots to make sure they get to avoid commercial flying. Why do you think Astronauts fly proficiency hours when the Orbiter can land itself?



JRV that begs the question.....why didnt NASA just take it out and let the Astronauts joy ride on the Space Shuttle....buzz all restricted airspace....nyc, dc.....nsa hq, cia hq.....go up to chi-town buzz sears tower....fuck 'em if they cant take a joke at an astronomical expense to taxpayers!