P.C.: The chase gave me a call that I was a little bit to the left of heading at launch. Although I didn't look out to see where I was going, I got that impression too because as I came off the hooks at launch, the first thing the airplane rolled to the left. I made a yaw correction to the right and rolled it back up level. The airplane rolled again to the left, so I rolled it more to the right. All the time I was pulling up through 12° a I was correcting this out-of-trim condition. I didn't realize that it was a lateral out of trim, because it felt more like a sideslip. The sideslip needle was zero but I thought I was flying in a sideslip so I got off rudder pedals twice in the climb profile to make sure that I wasn't putting any rudder in and still got the impression I was in a steady state sideslip. Later on, after I burned out, I realized that it was laterally out of trim. I pulled it on up and got to 12° a, went to 2g, and I got the 2g at about 10° a, and then just held 2g. The last time I looked at angle of attack it was down about 5° and I went to zero a. Zero g and zero a matched all the way until I realized I was going high and I pushed over to about minus 0.2g. From the simulator, I would have guessed this wouldn't have been over 1.5° or 2° negative a, but it indicated about 3° in the airplane.

The only thing that was non-routine was this out-of-trim in roll or the sensation that I was getting a little sideslip.

B. Rate the pilot task to recover from launch and establish the climbout attitude. q 2 , f 2.5 , y 2 .

P.C.: There wasn't any problem in pitch. As I recall on my last flight, roll wasn't any problem, but this time roll was a continual distraction, trying to figure out what was going on, all the way through the flight.

P.C.: The initial climb was real good with everything matching real well with the simulator up to 37 seconds. I was kind of waving back and forth in roll with bank angles of maybe 2° to 3° each side. The motion was not very fast because the airplane would roll over and I'd bring it on back and over-correct it. It had a long period and didn't take very much stick deflection to counteract it, just a fraction of an inch. NASA 1 said I was leaning to the left of track but I indicated on course. No problem on up to pushover. Theta was real comfortable. It seemed to take a little longer to get up to 2g than I expected from the simulator, but I don't think that's abnormal.

At about the pushover point, I expected to see a little degradation in sideslip and I think I did see some wiggling in sideslip. It was probably due to continually correcting in roll.

B. Were heading corrections required during this time?

P.C.: I didn't make any heading corrections from about the first 5 seconds until I was somewhere near 200 seconds.

C. Discuss and rate the pilot task to fly the requested profile at zero g.

q 2.5 , f 2.5 , y 2 .

P.C.: I think there's two areas where I can rate this condition in pitch. The initial pushover to get to zero g and the trimmed flight following. I had the feeling I kind of jerked it, or bobbled it going over the top. This may have been due to the trim knob because I knew that my thumb moved but I didn't know whether the trim button was moving or not. The force required to move the trim knob was very low. Once I had pushed over and as long as it was steady state there was no control problem.

D. Would the ratings of II.C. remain the same for the period from speed brakes out, to shutdown? q 1.5 , f 2.5 , y 2 .

P.C.: The lower rating in pitch is due to the fact the airplane is trimmed, and not particularly a speed brake effect.

q 3 , f 2 , y 2 .

P.C.: There was no problem once I got onto it but I seemed to set up an oscillation when I was trying to go from one a point to the other. This showed up on the simulator. I could get at least one full pitch cycle while I was flying from one point to the next. Every time that I changed angle of attack, I induced an oscillation. It was worse at the first two points at 5,000 fps and 4,500 fps, but from there on I controlled it much better. The low force on the trim knob really complicated flying to a precise angle of attack.

B. Were test points obtained, as planned?

P.C.: No, I didn't get the 5°a at 5,000 ft/sec. Everything I practiced on the simulator was in reverse to what I did on the flight at each a point, instead of going down I was coming up.

C. Was cockpit instrument panel display adequate for performance of this task?

P.C.: Yes, and I made pretty good use of the airspeed indicator as a q indicator. NASA 1 gave me one call that I had a good q level and I got a quick check on the airspeed. I was pretty close to what I was hoping would be my minimum speed indicated and when I arrived at the next point I was somewhere around 575 knots indicated.

The first time I looked at it, at this prolonged zero g point, I noted the airspeed was high, indicating that I would have a little higher q. I would estimate, according to the simulator, that it would be roughly 900 q at the time that I went over the top. I was getting up as high as 900 q at burnout. In order to get this I was holding 600 knots on the simulator, and I was over 600 knots in the airplane so I guess it's about the same with a correction.

Everything looked real good and I was real surprised to find I was over the profile, because I expected to be low, based on the q indicator.

D. Estimate the clarity of ground to air communications throughout this flight.

P.C.: I had a communication level of 5 x 5. The only time I had bad communications was between the B-52 and the X-15 in the last 10 minutes down to about 2 minutes, then it was about 2 x 3.

E. Other than communications, was ground control effective on the flight?

P.C.: Ground control was very good on this flight.

P.C.: I ended up with less energy than I planned by about 15,000 feet, compared with the simulator. It got me to high key low. I was a little lower than I wanted to be and closed up the pattern which threw me off on the landing point. I was inside the lake all the way. I considered putting speed brakes out just as I rolled out on the final but I felt it's not worth getting caught with the speed brakes out. I could have landed as much as 2,000 feet shorter just by using the speed brakes.

B. Rate the pilot task on the approach and landing.

Approach q 2 , f 3 , y 2 .

Landing q 2 , f 2 , y 2 .

P.C.: Even on the ground the airplane wanted to go left so I held full right rudder and right stick. It wasn't full lateral control, but was as much as I could get. The airplane stayed within 1° on the heading.