Space Shuttle Enterprise sailed over the skyline on its final flight!

Space Shuttle Enterprise on her final mission!

NEW YORK (AP) — In a city understandably wary of low-flying aircraft, New Yorkers and tourists alike watched with joy and excitement Friday as space shuttle Enterprise sailed over the skyline on its final flight before it becomes a museum piece.

Ten years after 9/11, people gathered on rooftops and the banks of the Hudson River to marvel at the sight of the spacecraft riding piggyback on a modified jumbo jet that flew over the Statue of Liberty and past the skyscrapers along Manhattan’s West Side.

“It made me feel empowered. I’m going to start crying,” Jennifer Patton, a tourist from Canton, Ohio, said after the plane passed over the cheering crowd on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the floating air-and-space museum that will be the shuttle’s permanent home.

“I just feel like to have a plane fly that low over the Hudson, right past New York City, and to have everyone cheering and excited about it, shows that we don’t have fear, that we have a sense of ‘This is ours.’”

Onlookers bundled up on the blustery spring day along the piers on the West Side, cameras slung around their necks. The roar of the aircraft could barely be heard over the howling winds. In truth, the camera angles on TV made it seem as if the shuttle was a lot closer to the buildings than it really was.

The low-altitude flight was well-publicized, and few people were caught off-guard. Not one person called 911 to report a low-flying plane, police said.

That’s a striking contrast to what happened in 2009 when the Pentagon conducted a photo-op flyover in lower Manhattan by a passenger jet and F-16 fighter. The sight of the aircraft flying past the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan’s financial district set off a flood of 911 calls and sent office workers rushing into the streets in panic.

On Friday, the jet carrying the shuttle turned east and flew over central Long Island. Nassau County office workers looked out their windows in delight as it passed over the Roosevelt Field Mall, near the spot where Charles Lindbergh took off for Paris in 1927.

The shuttle then touched down at Kennedy Airport, where a controller radioed: “Welcome to New York, and thanks for the show.”

The shuttle will be taken to the Intrepid by barge in June and is scheduled to open to the public in mid-July.

Enterprise never went on an actual space mission; it was a full-scale test vehicle used for flights in the atmosphere and experiments on the ground.

It comes to New York as part of NASA’s decision to end the shuttle program after 30 years.

Space shuttle Discovery flew over the nation’s capital last week and will end up at the Smithsonian. Endeavor is going to Los Angeles, and Atlantis is staying at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

 Associated Press Writers Deepti Hajela, Colleen Long and David B. Caruso in New York City and Frank Eltman on Long Island contributed to this report.

 Full legal notice © 2011 Ufofreebandclub.com  All rights reserved. NEW OPEN POLICY ON CONTENT SHARING. Keeping with the spirit of Creative Commons and the Fair Sharing Act of the United States Copyright Office effective 10/2011

Ufofreebandclub content is the intellectual property of Robert Wright or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Ufofreebandclub.com content, including by framing or similar means, is approved without the prior written consent of Robert Wright. Share any piece of my articles as long as no part is used for commercial use or for profit , and you must provide a permalink back to any used portion of our articles from the new URL address. Know that Robert Wright & Ufofreebandclub.com shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. “Ufofreebandclub.com” and the Ufofreebandclub.com/blog/ Logo are trademarks of Robert Wright and its affiliated companies. For additional information on other Robert Wright’s media services please visit http://ufofreebandclub.com/blog/

The Ufofreebandclub is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information,  experiences and observations about what’s in the news. Some of the comments may  be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively,  open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity,  hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point.  Thank you for  taking the time to offer your thoughts. Consent to use “Third Party” content is still governed by the Owners of that contents policies and still remains the intellectual property of those “third party” creators.