Taken on approach to my first assignment of the year. I was hired by the architect to photograph his latest work: the NASA Facility Support Center at Edwards AFB.
At the edge of the base is Rogers Dry Lake, which contains this titanic compass rose (painted into the lake and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985), used to guide the Space Shuttle, which would often land at Edwards. Each of those numbers is over 200 feet long. The longest lines are almost 5 miles long. To give you a sense of scale, here it is from the opposite direction, facing the base. On the extreme right, the metal structure is what they used to load the shuttle on the back of the 747. On the extreme left is the runway the shuttle used to land, which is almost 4 miles long.
This image was captured as we circled for a landing on the smaller of the two runways. We had to circle because an F16 was performing touch-and-go exercises on that runway. After landing, we had to hold our position on the tarmac because an F35 was crossing in front of us. At the end of the day, we took off on the runway used by the Shuttle. At least 10 of our little Comanches could have taken off side by side on it :)
It was an amazing day.
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This was a favorite pic of the challenge. From the perspective, I figured it had to be big, but I didn't realize the scale of it. Thanks for putting in the notes and links. I'll live vicariously through you ;)
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