Surf Ctiy Anticipates the Endeavour Shuttle Fly-By
On its final run, the U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour waves goodbye with a fly-by of Boeing in Huntington Beach before landing at LAX on Friday morning, September 21, 2012. Carried on the back of a low flying jet for a final rendezvous of sorts, local workers at the Huntington Beach facility may become a little teary-eyed as they watch for the shuttle to make its last ride past the facility at the intersection of Bolsa and Bolsa Chica. Residents are planning their strategies for the momentous flight, though vantage points are difficult to plan for. HB lacks many tall rooftop spots to see the flight and Boeing facility sits next to Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station secured fields.
The Endeavour left Florida perched on a 747, and heading for its final destination to go on display at California Science Center in Los Angeles.
The Endeavour landed at Edward AFB approx. 100 miles north of Los Angeles on Thursday and will take off after sunrise to complete its last leg, flying over the State Capitol, San Francisco low near the Golden Gate Bridge around 8:30 a.m., then, down Highway 101 to Palo Alto and Silicon Valley, home of Moffett Field, in honor of the NASA Ames Research Center. In Southern California it will pass above Los Angeles City Hall, Disneyland, Boeing in HB, the Aquarium of the Pacific and the Queen Mary in Long Beach, at about 1,500 feet.
Finally, the Endeavour will circle and land at its destination, LAX with an ETA of around 11 a.m. After landing, it will undergo several weeks of preparation before taking to the streets of Los Angeles in early October on a 12-mile crawl that required chopping down hundreds of trees and rerouting power lines from LAX to the science museum.