Post Flight

Flight 1-38-61

Date: 7/18/63 Maj. Rushworth

Rushworth: On the prelaunch check list I didn't have any problems at all and the only thing that looked abnormal to me was the ball nose check. I didn't get a full throw on the side slip and angle of attack indicator when I released the button. It was a good looking check except the needles did not go full deflection. The rest of the prelaunch check list went off fine. It seemed to me we launched a little bit late and our position on the ground but I wouldn't guarantee that. On the light up I delayed a long time so I wouldn't get any complaints out of the B-52 pilot. Started on up, everything seemed to be pretty normal on the way up and all my checks were pretty close. I got to 70,000 feet, Mach 3 and 80,000 feet and I had my check point there that looked good. Jack was calling me a little high all the way and apparently that's the standard error between radar and the ships systems. I got out to 5600 fps and shutdown on that. Didn't hear Jack's call and then he was talking right after that and he had seen shutdown. And my clock stopped at 86. Whether that ran over or not I don't know. My time looked real good at 80 seconds so that I planned to get to 5600 fps on the right time. I delayed the pushover little longer and just about the time I started turning back up for 5° angle of attack I got a good 13 cycle jolt out of the airplane system and watched that a little bit. I was looking at the stability to compare to the simulator during this 0g and high q and high speed which turns out to be a little bit better than what I had seen on the simulator. At 5° I shut off all the SAS and yaw damper and roll damper and the airplane was very steady until I disturbed it and it acted pretty much like the simulator, perhaps a little bit better under this condition.

I went into the pullup and I don't think I got, I'm positive I didn't get the full 20° and I'm guessing it's more like 15° on the pull up. Roll yaw motion was introduced during the pull up. I stopped this and then gave it another quick input with the aileron and got another motion started which indicated about a ±30° of roll and about ±5° in sideslip. I let it go a little bit and then made one quick control input that was in the right sense. It started the oscillations all to stop and I don't think I had used quite as good a control in the airplane as I did in the simulator. Not quite as much response, but it stopped OK and I would consider it very easy to control if you know the motions he used. On the push down the next 3 or 4 sequences of pulses the airplane's response was better on each pulse than I had seen in the simulator. I was willing to go all the rest of the way without any problem and maneuver the airplane at will and take good control over it anywhere. I got the last call from Jack which indicated I was 16 miles from, and I expected him to say I was 30 miles from, home. Considering my speed and altitude I wanted to do a couple of more pulses but I had to give them up because I was too close in. Everything else went good into the pattern and I think my touchdown was on the spot with a little pushover and about 200 knots touchdown. Everything went fine there.

Question: Did the inertial velocity if you.......... what's left give you the reading you expected?

Rushworth: All the way to Mach 2 inertial was real good as far as I could tell, everything was going fine there. The altitude call that Jack gave me at 45,000 feet, I showed inertial at 50 and pressure at 40. OK. I probably overshot 5600 by 50 fps or so, it was that close on the crosscheck.