Shuttle carrier aircraft piggybacking the space shuttle Endeavor - video

[Toolmaker51]

Beautiful and majestic like dual dragonflies! Gorgeous landing (5 of 5)!! I'm very impressed though with FA-18 pilot for not falling out of the sky....stall speed is around 135.

A 135 knot or mph stall is one thing; but video shows the FA-18 flying along naturally as a biplane or Piper Cub. I found that relaxing to watch, good as spellbound. And they flew by all kinds of 'my' Los Angeles landmarks. Didn't see Marv outside, but I'd bet he was!
I also tried to wrap my head on the engineering of carrying a shuttle; wing incidence, desired lift, CG, max payload, structural loads of 747 airframe, load/unload, sure a lot of considerations. What got me started was seeing the tail cowling on the shuttle.
What a time it was; seemed like very avionic, airframe, and material supplier you ran in to, had a piece of the shuttle contract and/ or related projects. Sometime, think I'll note all the significant work I was aware of ~1950's on.