WOW! yesterday I spent the evening with an ASTRONAUT and a TEST PILOT!!!

[JEFX]

Just thought I would share my pleasure with my forum friends.

 

As some of you might know, I am conductor at the Montreal Symphony and we have a series of concerts in which we invite a personality to come, choose the program (with me) and we play the concert with this person there telling the audience why they choose Brahms or Mozart...

 

Yesterday I was conducting such a concert and my guest was Canadian astronaut Julie Payette who is quite famous in Montreal. It was totally fascinating, both for the 2000+ audience AND the 100 musicians of the Symphony because the MC was asking her about her space shuttle experiences and she was describing everything in great details : quarantine, preparation, take-off (accelerating from 0 to 28000 km/h in 8 continuous minutes...), stopping the engines and experiencing their first free-fall-vomit-bags..., manipulating the cargo bay of the shuttle, the Canadian robotic arms, coupling with the space station, walking in space...

 

Not only she is a hell of a smart lady (she has multiple degrees in various disciplines, she speaks 5 languages, she has 1000+ hours in the T-38 and she does deep-sea diving, she has 15 doctorate honoris causa from various universities AND she is an astronaut...), but also, she is quite beautiful. At some time in our preparatory Houston-Montreal communications I learned that she had played the flute at some point...

 

Well, yesterday, I had her play a small piece along in the orchestra, with her good ol flute... The audience, (myself included, waiting on the podium...), was totally mesmerized by her tales. And of course we played, on top of Brahms and Mozart, some of the Star Wars score!

 

After the concert, in my dressing room, we had a beer with her family and I met her husband... Guess what He does? He was a Canadian military F-18 before and now he is a test-pilot! He worked for a few years to develop the Eurofighter and now he is testing the F-16 Block 60 (I jumped out of my chair when he told me that!) and he will be shortly in the team of the F-35.

 

Now THAT is what I call a special couple.

 

I had an unforgetable night!

Just wanted to share my excitement with you guys!

 

 

JEFX

[Groove]

Awesome reading. Thanks for sharing with us. Not all of us has the opportunity to meat such kind of people.

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

Cool stuff Mate!

[A.S]

 

After the concert, in my dressing room, we had a beer with her family and I met her husband... Guess what He does? He was a Canadian military F-18 before and now he is a test-pilot! He worked for a few years to develop the Eurofighter and now he is testing the F-16 Block 60 (I jumped out of my chair when he told me that!) and he will be shortly in the team of the F-35.

 

 

Billie Flynn < him ? :music_whistling:

 

 

.. the first one what came in my mind after..reading .....canada....f-18...eurofighter test...and F-16 E/F

[JEFX]

Right on!

Exactly!

 

JEFX

[JEFX]

Now, RvE, how did you get that so quickly and where did you get the picture?

 

JEFX

[A.S]

Watch this movie ..there you can see how he is testing the Typhoon.. Avionics, Radar and lil Drag-modifications on the engine inlets

 

FLIGHTPATH V | Future Fighter ( once in History Channel )

 

 

http://www.setp.org/HTML/Personnel/Flynn.htm ..... pure luck :shifty:

 

if you ever see him again...ask him ..if that was him back in days (eta. 2000 - 2001 ) flying

 

an unpainted Typhoon (like that)

 

 

over Regensburg. 48° 58/ 58.40// N - 12° 10/ 09.49// E pretty LoW ;) (Something says me it was him hehe)

[JEFX]

RvE, you would make a good reporter!

The guy is really cool, he is definitly a very strong person and exsude confidance, yet he is very gentle and caring with his 4 year-old! I must say they where both incredible...

 

 

JEFX

[mvsgas]

Cool guys nice thread, some time you can only be in awe at some great people in this world.