These are the best (air-to-air) pictures of the Discovery mounted atop NASA's Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

The following pictures were published today on the U.S. Air Force Westover Air Reserve Base Facebook page.

They show the Space Shuttle Discovery mounted atop NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft SCA (NASA 905) shortly after take off from Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, at about 7 a.m. EDT on on Apr. 17.

The duo, followed by a T-38 chase plane (whose backseater carried the camera that took the cool images), headed south to fly over Brevard County’s beach communities for residents to get a look at the shuttle before it left the Space Coast for the last time.

Image credit: NASA via Westover Air Reserve Base

About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.