During the course of the flight, on the climbout, I did a stairstep climb. My quotation on this is, "A maneuvering type flight is a real good type flight to find out just how lousy that sidestick is". I wound up having trouble staying on q because of the trim adjustments required. I would tend to do a typical pilot approach to the thing by making a small adjustment with the stick and then tickle the trim to relieve back pressure only to find my thumb was locked up and I couldn't move it. I would relax, and this would put a little jog in. After engine shutdown my thumb continued to cramp so I flew the pitch angle with the center stick. For the trim tab I used my right thumb, and sometimes I flew the whole thing, once I trimmed out, with the right stick. Any time I wanted to change angle of attack, I pulled or pushed on the center stick, and moved the trim tab with my right hand. It made a lot smoother job out of it.

I think with this sliding type trim knob, we have been working on we will be able to use trim on the side stick in a manner similar to that on the center stick. This flight would have been a dead loss if I had been trying to do it with the sidestick only.

I can't recall exactly, now, whether it was just prior to, or just after pushing over to zero g, when the engine obviously started to vibrate. The chamber pressure seemed normal. I thought, well if it's going to cutout I'll continue on until it does. Finally it smoothed out and ran nicely right up until I shut it off. I am not certain whether the vibration started before I pushed over, or after I had pushed over. It was not coincident with pushover to zero g. The vibration had started to smooth out when I commented about it. At that time the chamber pressure was 580 psi and seemed to be steady. It was around 60 seconds after launch when it began to run smoothly again.

Comment: At about 45 seconds there was about 50-pounds loss in chamber pressure.

Walker: This was well after pushover. It started out mild, reached the peak vibration, and then drifted back toward the smooth side. At shutdown it was running smoothly.

Immediately after engine shutdown, I rolled into a 60° bank. The nose was higher than zero q so I allowed it to come down. NASA 1 was giving me the q, and my airspeed indicator was at about 600 knots indicated. As soon as I got the nose down, they were already saying the q was dropping. My airspeed indicator drifted down slightly. This seemed to be about what we expected from the way it behaved during practice. I pulled up to about 10° angle of attack, and then I noticed the airspeed unwinding rapidly. NASA 1 kept telling me I was low. I lowered the nose until it was about -10° on indicated q as referenced to zero q prior to launch from the B-52. I kept hearing from NASA 1 that q was decreasing, but the airplane was creaking and popping and it continued to do this. Smoke started curling up in the cockpit. I looked out, and the nose was where it should be relative to the horizon. It appeared to me that it was lower than it had to be to maintain level flight. I didn't want to push the nose down thinking that I would wind up in a screaming dive. I decided points at any q that seemed to be reasonably steady were probably better than no points at all. At one instance, I thought my nose was getting down a little at the high angle of attack, so I held onto 20°a a little longer and this accounted for an extra amount of turn at one point. I decreased a back down and NASA 1 kept saying the q was coming down. My airspeed indicator was going up and down, 200 knots, 100 knots, back up to 300. I finally decided that this just was not right. How could I get almost 4g if it was behaving the way it should?

The airplane flew fine, better than flying in the simulator. Only at one point did I get any tendency for a directional disturbance from abrupt bank correction. I could detect a directional wobble with a rapid bank correction. I got another one later as I pushed the nose down to look for the base. The plane built up speed; so I pulled back hard and noticed a very short period directional oscillation. At that time, also, I was aware of a tremendous deceleration. I slowed to 400 knots, and shortly after that Bob White (chase) said he was close on the right side. I thought if he could see me that was all we needed. I made a very comfortable 450° overhead approach.

I'm convinced this flight plan was exactly what we advertised, illustrating one of the benefits of having aerodynamic surfaces for a reentry vehicle, and, of course, maneuvering from an on-track to an off-track position.

I doubt that anyone thought our angle of attack indication was very far off, or they would not have let us go on this flight knowing we had to make the turn. Based on the fact that I pulled inside the planned ground track, I feel our q may have been a shade on the high side rather than on the low side.

On landing we had a small amount of tail wind. The wind was drifting the airplane and it started to wander to the left so I fed in rudder, but never actually overcorrected. It was a case of coming part way back and then letting off. I got in with both rudder and aileron and wound up going straight ahead. It fishtailed a little about that point, if I recall Before touchdown, I may have had some sideslip due to fishing with the rudder . I wanted to make sure I wasn't accidentally holding rudder in when I was slightly crossways to the runway. No lateral out of trim was noticeable. I didn't think I was much faster than normal until I started sliding (i.e., after landing) .

I did not attempt a spot landing because I realized if I wanted to drop it on I would hit the mark, but I wasn't going to. I held it off more than I would have if I had been committed to sticking on a runway. I could also have deployed speed brakes. I did use the sidestick for the landing with minus 2° stabilizer trim getting, so I would know which way a would go if I relaxed

JAW:dmo

Typed: 6-12-62