Standerd Slides

Subject: Eric Ruck
Photo: Josh Letchworth

TSQ Location: Book 1.3, Contents section , page 15

Living in Florida and close to the beach, we see and hear the space shuttle launches on the news on a regular basis. Since I was a kid, we could always watch the shuttle lifting up over the tree tops in the distance. I’ve seen a countless number of launches throughout my Florida-living life. I told Ruck about a shot I wanted to get and I thought his lake might work best because of the amount of space we had to work with…no pun intended.

(A HUGE credit of getting this shot lined up was due to Parks Bonifay driving the boat for us.) So here’s how it went down.

Days before the launch, we kept an eye out to make sure everything was still on schedule for liftoff. When the day arrived, Ruck, PB, Collin, myself and a few others made our way out into the middle of the Clear Lake to get ready and in position. We listened to the countdown on the radio to know exactly when we should expect to see the shuttle flying over the trees. Then, we got the tow boat as close to shore as possible and had another boat out into the middle of the lake to give us a visual idea of where to start driving the boat. Ruck had two tricks in mind and planned on stomping them first try, and if all went well, try again and again and again until the shuttle was to high and out of frame for the shot.

What we didn’t have planned was how fast that thing climbs and the fact that it doesn’t always fly straight up in the air like I had pictured in my head. Those two things specifically, made us scramble at the last seconds. We started over in the corner of the lake and quickly made our way to the middle until Parks could line up the boat with the smoke trail in the background. Once, we thought we had that dialed, we had to wait a few seconds for the boat to plane off from the constant turn we were stuck in from lining it up, adjust the speed, then have Ruck bust some cab fronts. In that short amount of time, say 15 seconds, the shuttle had made it’s way out of my frame. I kept ducking as low as possible to really get that upward angle and keep the shuttle in there, and Ruck, and not blow the timing. Ruck was in the peak of the trick when I took this shot. It’s sheer dumb luck that he’s actually in the line of site with the smoke trail. I didn’t really plan on that happening, but hey, I”ll take it. Much props to PB for his erratic driving and to Ruck for stomping this shot!

- Meddock