Dear reader.............it's another long one!

Today will be my 3rd day at the Kennedy Visitor Complex, like I said I am being thorough! This will be a little different as I am going on the tour called Then & Now, and in addition to sites at the currently active Kennedy Launch Complex, we will also be visiting the Cape Canaveral Air Force base. Because we are going to an active military installation I have to bring my passport for Homeland Security.

Also along the way to KSC I saw signs for helicopter tours, I look up the tour operator on the interweb and book a tour for the end of the day. Steve offers me the option of going in an air conditioned helo or an open cockpit WWII Waco Biplane, well that is a no-brainer! The KSC tour is 3.5 hours long and starts at 1230. The flight is at 1700 and is non refundable and non cheap, the drive is 45 minutes, the math is making me nervous.

I decide to leave early and reconnoiter the path to the Merritt Island air field, (it really is an air field!) I do this for 2 reasons; one I want to make sure I am on time, and two, I love using the word reconnoiter both in speech and print! I find it is pretty much as the Google math puts it and it is 30 minutes driving time, prolly more with late day traffic.

Upon arriving at KSC my Badge slides me through the parking lot in record time. I had purchased my ticket online and picked it up at will call without incident. Things were going very smoothly, the final step? Kalvin-breath! Maybe it his day off, maybe he is out buying cigarettes and coffee? I can only hope, but as I round the corner I see him methodically attaching his stickers both pink & green.

When I show my ticket to the first Deltayeller she directs me to an entirely different line-up, the positive of that is that I completely circumvent the whole Kalvin-breath line-up process. He is engaged with other guests as I pass by (you can see them recoiling in horror from him, or so I think) and I think I am going to get away scott free today, plus I wore a different shirt today. I am almost past him when we briefly make eye contact, then the link is broken, and we both move on with our lives. I think it is better that way.

I meet a cotton topped Homeland Security Officer. When he addresses me I see his mouth is filled with perfect white teeth. It does not surprise me that he has exemplary oral hygiene, I am 10' away from him and I can see my reflection in his boot tops! With a quick glance he appraises me in about 0.4 seconds based on my long hair, messy from the wind. He is curt, and no nonsense. When he is done copying down my passport info he hands it back along with a sticker and the instructions to affix it to my shirt.

I share my fundamental and ideological distaste of name tags and he says, "tough ****, you are going to an active military installation, you don't get on that bus until I see that sticker on your shirt". Naturally I capitulate! I am pretty sure I am not going to get a hug from this guy! At least the sticker is white!

Off we go, naturally slowing down by the Eagles nest to discuss how the tour guide has single-handedly devoted her life to restoring Eagle populations across North America based on this single, albeit empty, nest. I suppose if you only took one tour, you would only have been shown this nest twice (going & coming) and wouldn't have developed this pathological distaste of this tall tale like I have.

As soon as we enter Cape Canaveral Air Force base we are told that we cannot take any pictures or video except for when we are in designated areas, and that we will be informed when that is. The nice lady repeats this caveat several times, and warns that because we are on Federal land the penalty can be up to seizure of the equipment. These guys are not kidding!

The first stop is a missile museum not open to the general public. Our doscent (expert) is an ex-torpedoman on Minuteman submarines, he does not like the Air Force and makes numerous jokes about them that goes over the heads of 90% of the 12 people on the tour, I get most of them though, he is a pretty grumpy submariner. I don't think extended peace has treated this guy well.

He speaks at great length with a man from India that has endless questions. The man keeps asking where the missiles land when they test fire them from submarines but does not understand the answer that they land back in the water. Finally, frustrated he says that the point them at India, and then turns his back on the man. You should've seen how big his eyes got!



The next room opens with a V2 rocket engine captured right from Peenemünde. Included with it came with a complimentary German Rocket Scientist named Werner von Braun and band of missileers who then spearheaded the US space initiative. The V2 rockets that rained down on London during the second world war provided the basis for all liquid fueled rockets since then. Swords into plowshares, eh?



The launch control room features an enormous analog computer that offered about 32 kilobytes of memory in equivalent terms to today's technology. The small chair and console in the center of the room is where the motors were actually fired from. Once John F. Kennedy gave a televised speech from that very chair. I also sat in it, and I don't mean a similar chair by the desk I mean the same exact chair JFK's ass touched, also touched my ass. I flipped the same launch buttons too, feeling very Presidential.

The control room was only 300' from the launch pad, a distance determined by the limited ability to send electrical signals down cable with ****** shielding during the 50's and 60's. They kept increase the window pane count as launches would blow the control room windows out, eventually reaching 50 panes. I wonder what the first one was like when they were at 3 panes?

There is a scale model of the Red Stone rocket Alan Shepard rode sitting on the pad. Previous to his launch NASA had sent about a dozen monkeys into orbit. He is famously quoted as saying when the press asked how he felt about his upcoming mission, "I guess they ran out of monkeys!" Now that guy was an honest to goodness Aw Shucks Hero! We go right out onto the pad and touch a replica of the rocket.

Next we drive out to the launch pad where the Apollo I fire took the lives of astronauts Grissom, Chaffee & White. NASA eventually made over 1300 design changes following the tragedy. These 3 men really did sacrifice their lives for the space program, teaching NASA pace, patience and perspective when they were at a time of headlong progress. The site also launched Apollo 7 which was a stepping stone mission. While we were allowed photography on the site, to the south was CIA rocket being prepared for launch at an undisclosed time and we were not allowed to take pictures in that direction. And we didn't! You can just see it through the concrete wall with the opening in the middle. I hope I don't go to jail!



The site was pretty poignant and just underscored that this is serious business! But all the lessons they learned there were being applied in real time just 2500 feet away so their sacrifice was not in vain.

We stopped at a few more sites, saw a 500 year time capsule at a Mercury site and went back to the camera tracking station where humans would be liquified. I saw a sandbag covered bunker there I missed the first time, apparently the first time the site was used a portable generator powered the camera unit, and it got liquified too, or at least rattled to pieces by the sonic energy. They built a bunker for it for subsequent launches. Eventually they cabled power to the site to run the cameras direct.

There were also some porta potties at that site for the tourists, they are all cabled to ground. Apparently during bad weather that area can see winds in excess of 100 MPH and the potties had been blown as much as 10 miles inland, coming to rest against a chain link fence surrounding an unused launch pad.

As we were heading back out of the base at the conclusion of the tour a small road was pointed out to us, and then a minute later 2 telephone poles with a small concrete dome barely visible for just a few seconds. The remains of the Columbia Shuttle are stored there. Once the investigation was over they didn't know what to do with the wreckage; they couldn't display it, they couldn't dump it in the garbage or ocean. In the end they put in in a hole they dug and covered it in cement at the end of a small lonely road.

Unbelievably they dropped us at the Saturn 5 display again instead of going back directly. Not wanting to repeat my back door performance of yesterday I asked the tour guide about my options, she suggested staying on the bus, which worked out great as it pulled ahead and was loaded in no time. On the way back we were enthralled with tales of restoring global eagle populations starting at this world famous, albeit empty mind you, eagles nest. I was happy that was the last time I would see it. Here it is for your enjoyment, but only once!



Back at KSC, one more look around, make sure I didn't miss anything I wanted to do. (FOMO!) Seeing nothing I split for Merritt Island Airport, driving directly there down my previously reconnoitered route. The aircraft is a WWII biplane trainer with 2 cockpits, I sit up front but sadly do not have dual controls. During pilot training this was the first plane you flew, if you couldn't master this one you were washed out.



Getting into it required some serious acrobatics and some serious waiver signing. As I sat in the front cockpit and did up my seat belt I made a joke with the pilot about the plane not having twin Vickers! Sadly his knowledge of biplane history was non existent. Too bad, because my knowledge is quite extensive. BTW twin Vickers were the first front pointing machine guns synchronized to fire through the propeller. Before that they put armor plates on the prop to deflect bullets, sometimes back into the pilots!

We took off from the runway, and as it is a tail dragger you can't see where you are going until the tail come up and plane is level and already flying. The pilot looks sideways and keeps the wing a steady distance from the edge of the runway. We took off in about 500 feet. Flight in an air cooled radial engine is a noisy, smelly, rattling visceral experience that can be compared to nothing else.

Although we had many airspace restrictions over the Cape and KSC we were still able to see many sites that I saw from the ground, from the air. As I was using my HD camera, that footage will fit nicely with my ground footage in an upcoming update.



The flight was about 30 minutes and over all too soon. When we returned to the airfield, we landed on a grass strip and used maybe 250' of runway. We taxi'ed back to their hangar, and parked the aircraft. The pilot posted the video of me on their YouTube channel but I will make you wait until I can edit my own version.

The pilot and I exchanged some pleasantries, although we wore comm sets in the plane it is so loud we could barely understand one another. I paid, added a tip and paid for my video to be mailed home and left, **** eating grin from ear to ear permanently plastered across my face! When we were flying over Cocoa Beach I noticed a shortcut I could take back to my mo'tel. I was home in 15 minutes.

Naturally a run for cold tasty revivifying beverages were required. I bypassed the fusion restaurant and went to a N.Y. Pizza place instead and had a awesome Focaccia pizza, and was back in my room by 8:00 pm. Did a little work offlining my video, but eventually went to bed around 10:00 pm after a call home to my BabyGirl!