November 7, 1963

Thompson: Well, everything went pretty well. There was hardly any hitch at all. The timing went real fine all the way up to drop and I felt real good about it. It again goes back to the simulator where you just had no question that you knew what to do. The launch was pretty good. I used about that much stick as Rushworth had said, and came off pretty level. The light was very noticeable and I came back to 50% and started the roundout. I was a little slow getting up on alpha. I finally got 10° and then I imagine it was somewhere in there that I got this tuck and noticed that I was off on alpha, a little low. So I got back up and I was late getting to the 20° theta and I bobbled around on theta on the way up, low one time, a little high the next time and the timing, of course, got a little behind here so I finally made the pushover on the altitude. Inertial information looked real good all the way. I think the maximum altitude I saw was about 73 right at the top Then I picked up a slight rate of descent anywhere up to a 100 feet per second. Right after that I got occupied with that darn sidearm. The trim wheel is so friction free that every time I would make a control input I'd look down and realize I had 5 or 10° of stabilizer cranked in and I would crank that out and look back at the altitude and try and catch up on that. So practically all the way down to pilot knob I was playing with that and finally decided I had better watch the profile quantities. Of course, this accounted for my not talking too much in there, Jack. I finally got turned I guess 3° after that third call. I didn't hear your first call on speed brakes in. I heard the second call and by this time I was down to about 3500 feet per second, came in on those and from there on it went pretty well. I held off on the rate of the starting down until you indicated we were over about Cuddeback I guess. Picked up about 400 feet per second and I was pretty high at high key, I imagine over 50 I think. I saw, I guess chase 4 steaming along underneath me and started around the turn. I used brakes both in the first part of the turn and on downwind. I was still high on downwind and then I left them out, oh I guess about half way around base, brought them back in and the flare was no problem at all. Then I think I started out on the brakes again after I had completed the flare and had the gear and the flaps down. I know right after touchdown I had full brakes out and at touchdown I flew it into the ground because I thought I was farther down the lake than what I was. As soon as I felt the skids tick I pushed forward on the stick rather sharply and then came up on the flaps and started looking for the brake handle, and that's when Joe says pull back on the stick so I tried that. I think I made a couple of roll inputs during the slideout and could definitely feel the effect of these but, of course, as soon as I got down below 100 it just started off the runway and finally came to a stop.

McKay: The reason we asked you to hold your descent, was you lost some energy, it wasn't too bad.

Thompson: I finally gave up fighting that trim on the side stick and I think I went center stick at high key, used it from there on in. The simulator trim knob is what I consider real good because you never inadvertently move it. Every time you move it's intentional and you can feel there is enough resistance. But with a glove on and the friction that is in the airplane you just can't tell if you have inadvertently moved it and you can't tell which direction. One other thing, the forces on the pedals are pretty light and I noticed the tendency to roll when I finally realized I was standing on one rudder trying to hang onto this thing.

Question: Generator set low again?

Thompson: Yes, it finally did. I hung onto that reset on #l for quite awhile and then I finally let go of it and the light went out. Everything went real good from then on. I only had one kick out on SAS, I can't remember when that was prior to drop, and from there on everything worked real fine.

Waite: .......... restart our hydraulic pressure hung for awhile at about 1200 pounds.

Thompson: Right after start? Oh, no. Right after start it went up to about 3500 and it never really varied except it finally settled down to about 3400 I guess.