Landing the Space Shuttle — An Incredible Flying Machine and the Thrill of a Lifetime – Hangar Flying

HANGAR FLYING - Timely stories, conversation, and inspirational insights that share The Spirit of Aviation.

Skip to content
Why We Fly
Youth
Taking Flight

Tips
DIY
Learning to Fly
Earning Wings Video Blog

Aviation History

From EAA’s Attic

Communities

Aerobatics
Homebuilding
Ultralights
Vintage
Warbirds

In Action

Chapters
Member Stories
Milestones

AirVenture
Podcasts
Recent Posts
EAA.org

Search for:

Landing the Space Shuttle — An Incredible Flying Machine and the Thrill of a Lifetime

May 16, 2019November 6, 2025 by EAA
In Member Stories, Why We Fly.

By Charlie Precourt, EAA 150237
“Atlantis, Houston,” came the call from NASA’s CAPCOM. “You’re on
energy approaching the HAC. Winds for Runway 33 are 090 at 8 gusting 15. You’re
go for nominal aimpoint and nominal drag chute deploy. We’re predicting
touchdown 2,600 feet (from the threshold) at 195 knots.”
I responded, “Houston, Atlantis copies, on energy.” We were
slowing Atlantis through Mach 1, only 3 minutes and 25 seconds from touchdown
in our dead-stick descent through 50,000 feet. There was no go-around option.
The CAPCOM, of course, was our astronaut colleague on the console
in the control center advising us about our trajectory to the runway. The HAC
was our heading alignment cone, an imaginary spiral in the sky we would fly
like a curved glide path from 40,000 feet to the ground. The aimpoint and drag
chute calls reassured us that conditions were nominal, meaning no abnormal
landing procedures required. But our crosswind was pretty stiff, so we’d have
to adjust for that. The touchdown airspeed and distance prediction were also
what we expected. Armed with all that information, I disconnected the autopilot
at 0.95 Mach and about 45,000 feet, and our mission pilot, Eileen Collins,
began calling advisory information to me the rest of the way down. This was my
first landing at the controls of Atlantis, and it was the culmination of a
10-day mission to the Russian Mir to deliver supplies and a fresh crew for the
space station.
In just about the same time it takes us to fly a 5-mile final to
touchdown in most of our homebuilt aircraft, I’d be descending from Mach 1 and
50,000 feet to a touchdown at 195 knots! It was pretty amazing to reflect on
all that brought us to this point. This is when hundreds of hours of training
started to kick in. All of the calls Eileen would give me in the next three
minutes were highly scripted and rehearsed so we remained fully coordinated in
guiding Atlantis to wheel stop at the Kennedy Space Center.
Although we had spent a lot of time in simulators, the key
training that prepared us to land the shuttle was in a modified Gulfstream G-II
business jet that flew with the same performance and feel of the shuttle. As I
grabbed the controls away from the autopilot, indeed it felt like I was back in
the Gulfstream. The miracle of the Gulfstream was its ability to fly the
20-degree dive glide path and maintain 300 knots down final, just as we would
in the shuttle. It achieved this by approaching with the landing gear down and
modulating thrust reversers while in flight. Where the shuttle used a split
rudder to provide a speed brake, the Gulfstream used thrust reversers to give
the same result and feel. The left seat was modified to replicate the shuttle
commander’s displays and controls, and the right seat was standard Gulfstream,
where the safety pilot/instructor would fly to take us into and out of shuttle
simulation mode. It was literally a flying simulator. We had to have a minimum
of 500 practice approaches in the Gulfstream before our first flight in the shuttle
right seat and 1,000 approaches before commanding a mission and performing the
landing from the left seat. By this time, I was near 1,700 approaches, and
Eileen and I had worked together on this for nearly a year as a crew. We were
pretty ready for this!
The shuttle flies an amazing re-entry. Just 30 minutes before re-entry
we were out over the Pacific, 400,000 feet up and 4,300 miles from Kennedy, at
Mach 25. Overhead Seattle, we were only 17 minutes from touchdown at 200,000
feet in a 70-degree right-wing-down bank, plowing through the atmosphere and
getting a view that would cover the entire United States in the next 10
minutes. Coming up on Mach 5 at 120,000 feet, just west of the Florida
panhandle, it felt like our trajectory was pointed out past the Bahamas, but as
we continued to slow and dig into the thicker atmosphere the nose dropped
gently until the Kennedy Space Center was clearly in the middle of our
windscreen!
In my head-up display, I had steering cues in pitch and bank,
much like an instrument landing system needle’s display, but in the shuttle we
used a guidance system that enabled a curved glide path that would guide me
around the HAC in a continuous bank. I also had airspeed, altitude, and speed
brake readouts. Our goal was to stay right on the glide path, as even one dot
low for a short period while up on the HAC could put us so low on energy we
might not reach the runway. We would lose 12,000 feet each 90 degrees of turn,
and our descent rate would reach over 12,000 feet per minute — there was no
room for error!
“Atlantis, Houston, you’re on energy at the 180,” CAPCOM
reported.
“Roger, on at the 180,” I replied.
Now at 28,000 feet and 300 knots, we were 180 degrees of turn
remaining to go before rolling out on final, with a reassuring call that we
were on energy. As we approached 90 degrees of turn to go, a high base position
at 20,000 feet, in a right turn, Eileen reported that due to clouds, she still
couldn’t get a visual on the runway.
“Keep flying the instruments,” she said.
“I am,” I responded.
“Okay, 13,000 feet rolling out on final, you have MLS,” she said
(our microwave landing system precision guidance had kicked in).
We were now in a 20-degree dive wings level looking at a
representation of the runway on our HUD, with a cloud deck below. This thing
really is a flying brick — our lift to drag ratio at this point was only 4.5 to
1.
“Ten thousand, body flap trail” was Eileen’s next call.
On glide path, on airspeed. When we broke out at 8,000 feet, the
real runway was superimposed perfectly under the HUD outline.
Then a few seconds later, “Three thousand, speed brake 35
percent,” and then “Two thousand preflare.” At that point, I started the nose
up to intercept a normal 3-degree glide path as we hit about 400 feet where
Eileen lowered the landing gear.
I called, “I see and hear landing gear moving,” and she reported
that the gear was down. Then her calls of altitude and speed came in a rhythm
I’d heard many times before, all the way to touchdown — “Fifteen feet. Ten.
Five. Touchdown.” I called for the drag chute, and we rolled to an exhilarating
stop. What a machine!
And how about that crosswind? Well, I had some special help with
that. Our families were afforded a view of the landing from the ramp adjacent
to the approach end of the runway, the best seat in the house. Our 15-year-old
daughter Sarah saw that I had the nose crabbed over into the wind as I finished
the flare, which meant it was pointed right at her, and the visual illusion
this created for her made her think I was flying right at her. So, she started
waving frantically and shouting, “Dad, get over, get over, you’re going to miss
the runway.” My wife thought my daughter was going to have a heart attack. But
we flew right on by her, and she breathed a huge sigh of relief. My wife and
friends had a good laugh at her panic attack. When I got off Atlantis later,
Sarah asked, “Dad, did you see me waving you over?” I sure did, Sarah. Thanks
for the vector!
Fly safe!

Charlie Precourt, EAA 150237, is a former NASA chief astronaut, space shuttle commander, and Air Force test pilot. He built a VariEze, owns a Piper JetPROP, and is a member of the EAA board of directors.

Tagged Space.

EAA

Post navigation

Previous: Be Your Own Mechanic — The Secondhand Homebuilt Aircraft Owner’s Guide to MaintenanceNext:5,000 Miles in a Spitfire — To Oshkosh via Vancouver

Contact Us
EAA Aviation Center - 3000 Poberezny Road, Oshkosh, WI 54902
920-426-4800 | 800-564-6322 | Museum: 920-426-4818
membership@eaa.org
Website: EAA.org

© 2019 EAA

The experience of landing the Space Shuttle Atlantis involved a highly coordinated sequence of communication and flight control, beginning with instructions from NASA’s CAPCOM regarding energy approaching the heat shield and wind conditions. The procedure necessitated managing the descent through Mach 1 and a dead-stick descent through fifty thousand feet, with the guidance relying on an imaginary spiral path known as the HAC to guide the aircraft from forty thousand feet to the ground in a curved glide path. The team confirmed nominal conditions through calls regarding aimpoint and drag chute deployment, although crosswind adjustments were necessary. This event served as the culmination of extensive preparation, as the pilot had to manage the transition from high-speed atmospheric flight to a controlled landing.

The preparation included rigorous training, which was not solely conducted in simulators but incorporated flying in a modified Gulfstream G-II business jet to replicate the shuttle's performance characteristics. This simulator setup effectively mirrored the shuttle's capabilities, particularly its ability to execute a twenty-degree dive glide path while maintaining final speeds, achieved through features like retractable landing gear and thrust reversers, which provided the necessary speed braking. The training involved hundreds of practice approaches and thousands of simulated missions, allowing the crew to achieve high levels of coordination and rehearsal for the actual landing sequence.

During the re-entry phase, the shuttle traversed immense atmospheric conditions, reaching speeds of Mach 25 and subsequently Mach 5 at high altitudes, navigating through the atmosphere in a steep bank. The guidance system utilized a method that allowed for a curved glide path around the HAC, enabling the pilot to manage energy loss precisely. The control system incorporated head-up display elements resembling instrument landing system needles for pitch and bank cues, alongside readouts for airspeed, altitude, and speed brake status, emphasizing the critical need to maintain the glide path to avoid energy depletion. As the descent progressed, the guidance involved precise calculations where losing energy rapidly due to turns in the atmosphere demanded extreme control.

As the aircraft neared the touchdown zone, the final guidance incorporated microwave landing system precision guidance. The pilot managed the transition to a normal three-degree glide path while positioning the aircraft at approximately four hundred feet. Following this, the sequence involved deploying the landing gear and initiating the final flare, which preceded the deployment of the drag chute. The process culminated in the aircraft rolling to a stop. During the landing, managing a crosswind required specific vectoring; a personal anecdote noted that the pilot’s maneuver caused a visual illusion for a family member observing from the ramp, demonstrating how even minor aerodynamic adjustments can affect perceived movement. The entire sequence underscored the complexity of controlling a vehicle through extreme atmospheric dynamics and precision guidance systems.