"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
05/01/2014 at 17:52 • Filed to: Planelopnik
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"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
05/01/2014 at 17:52 • Filed to: Planelopnik | 17
| 7 |
Walking back from a meeting this afternoon I noticed this painting on the wall captioned "Joe Engle Lands His X-15"
Not really a big deal, except a half hour earlier I was eating lunch with none other than General Joe Engle, who is here in town to give a talk tonight before heading to KU tomorrow. The KU Aerospace Engineering department is celebrating its 70th anniversary this weekend with special guests including Joe Engle and easily our most famous alumni Alan Mulally.
I'm heading up to Lawrence for the celebration tomorrow, but I'm in a bit of a state of surreal awe at the whole thing. After seeing the painting it sort of set in: I just ate lunch with the only person to ever hand fly a space shuttle through re-entry, just a few weeks after doing the same with a woman who spent 4 and 1/2 months on the ISS, and just a couple of days away from hearing the CEO of Ford speak to our common alma mater about the future of transportation.
When I was a kid I always dreamed of being a part of aerospace history, and I'm truly honored to the point of being speechless at the living history I've been able to be around to this point.
I don't know where I was going with this, but I thought I'd share. I'm not bragging, I'm just excited
ttyymmnn
> Jayhawk Jake
05/01/2014 at 17:59 |
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As a trumpet player, I felt the same thing when I got a chance to talk to Doc Severinsen, or Wolfgang Basch, or Mike Sachs, or Ray Crisara. Names that don't mean much to those outside my field, but to us trumpet players, they're huge. These are experiences that you will talk about for a lifetime. That's an awesome painting, btw.
For Sweden
> Jayhawk Jake
05/01/2014 at 18:03 |
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You're not in the aerospace industry until you've memorized the dialog of Top Gun and Apollo 13 , as well as owning a skinny black tie.
/works in aerospace industry
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For Sweden
> ttyymmnn
05/01/2014 at 18:10 |
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As someone who used to play trumpet, my lips feel better now.
yamahog
> For Sweden
05/01/2014 at 18:22 |
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Wait, was Foreign Relations 101: Top Gun not a prerequisite course in your aerospace department??
/holds aerospace degree
/left the industry (lolF35), now automotive
Racescort666
> Jayhawk Jake
05/01/2014 at 19:14 |
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Not bragging, just cool.
f86sabre
> Jayhawk Jake
05/01/2014 at 20:53 |
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Very, very cool. Getting to meet those folks is very special. What is best is when they turn out to be normal cool people.
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Jayhawk Jake
> f86sabre
05/02/2014 at 08:06 |
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Joe is definitely one of those 'they don't make them like they used to' sort of guys.
The talk last night was fantastic. The X-15 pilots were a different breed. My favorite moment was Joe told us about how the windows could crack due to thermal expansion on re-entry. If one failed no big deal, but if two failed they'd pop the canopy on approach. Joe said he always wanted that to happen because it would have been so cool to go to space and then land with an open cockpit. He even brought a silk scarf with him on every flight so if it did happen he could put it on and have a badass picture of him flying an open cockpit space plane!