2. X-15 radios - The X-15 radios worked real well with the exception of the poor reception from NASA-l from the area of the base out to about Cuddeback during the first radio check. All during the rest of the flight they were O.K. The 286.8 mc was a little weaker than 279.9 mc.

3. APUs - The APU start was normal. Number 2 pressure peaked out at about 400-500 psi and came down fairly slow, but then it came down and stabilized very quickly.

4. Damper System - The damper-system checked out normally.

5. Flow Direction Sensor - The ball nose worked normally all the way. (TM was real bad on b.) It looked real good in the airplane.

6. Launch space positioning - (Your heading, primarily) Heading was good at launch. NASA-l gave me a 1° heading correction to the right. That evidently did it for the rest of the flight. Whether we were off a degree or not I don't know. I didn't pick it up.

7. Launch transients (q, f, y) q was about 1-1/2. I overshot, I think, 2 or 3° on q right at the launch while I was fooling around finding the throttle. I was concentrating more on roll than on previous flights and I would rate it about 2. Psi was about 1-1/2 at launch. (Did you have any difficulty trying to hold the roll at launch?) No, it is getting more natural every time. You have to hold a little bit of left aileron in to keep from getting a rolloff at launch and then you have to get it out as soon as you drop away from the B-52. It's just a matter of anticipating how much you have to have and anticipating when to take it out. If you wait till you see yourself start to roll, then you get a roll. (No real problem?) No, there's no real problem, just a matter of refining the launch down, getting it as smooth as possible.

8. Engine start - I wasn't looking down at the launch switch and throttle when I went for the throttle. I was concentrating on roll, both looking out the window and looking at the ball nose. I grabbed hold of the speed brakes first and then realized I had hold of them and looked down and got the throttle in. No real problem there.

9. Unforeseen incidents - No unforeseen incidents in the launch or prelaunch phase.

2. ^·y operation - I went to "^·y" on NASA-l's call. There didn't seem to be any particular transient from "Standby" to "^·y" on the needle.

3. Experiment performance - I don't know whether the experiment was working during the boost phase or not. I didn't look at the experiment until after burnout.

4. q control - q control seemed much improved over the last flight. It was much easier to trim up on q. In fact, all axes seemed to have a lot better control than last flight.

5. Low a control - I don't think we ever got below about 6° a and this was after burnout. There weren't any control problems with a that I could see.

6. Altitude profile versus simulator - The altitude profile seemed to be a little bit lower than what we had programmed on the simulator. We shut down right on altitude about 20 fps excess on velocity. We were at about the right altitude for shutdown. During the boost phase altitude and velocity checks were working out right on the money, right according to the crosschecks we programmed. But, somewhere along the line we seemed to lose a little energy on peak altitude. This was the case with the last flight also. The platform seemed to be working real well. It seemed to be giving real accurate indications and we came out a little low on altitude. Not a whole lot and this may be within the tolerance of the simulator performance. It might be that you just flat can't tweak it in because I think it is awfully hard to deliberately try and go 4,000 ft one way or the other.

7. Unforeseen incidents - No unforeseen incidents in the boost phase either. (Did you check the shadow in the cockpit versus q for a quick q indication or an indication of a change in q?) The shadow? (The shadow coming from the sun.) No. No, I didn't. The shadow wasn't moving around very much once the airplane got on q. It moves during the round out until you establish q. Once I was on q today it didn't seem to move around very much. (You were aware of this, that everything seemed to be pretty static once you were on q?) Yea, it seemed like it was real stable today. (Do you think you could use this as a check on changing your pitch attitude?) Yes, I sure do.

2. Experiment performance - No comments.

3. Controllability in ballistic flight - The airplane was real easy to control in ballistic flight. I flew on manual ballistic controls and used the step input or "bang-bang" type control inputs with the ballistic system. (Did you pull the stick all the way over, you didn't use the proportional feature?) No. (All the way over?) All the way over. Control was real good. In fact, as I recall, there weren't an awful lot of control inputs that had to be made. At one time, I know, I induced a pitch rate just to get a feel for the system because it was so stable going over, just to see what it was like. I think we got something in the order of 15° of roll at one time. (Did you use any yaw inputs?) I remember using some yaw inputs pretty close to the top.

4. Controllability during initial and terminal reentry -

Initial q 2 , f 1.5 , y 2 .

Terminal q 2 , f 2 , y 1.5 .

(We have the ratings but would like some comments.) There seemed to be some damping during the initial reentry phase. By that I mean in the neighborhood of 180,000 ft. While setting up for reentry a, there seemed to be some noticeable aerodynamic damping, in that I could come up to angle of attack and it would droop back off to 17°. I came up over 17° at one time and had it stopped momentarily and then it drooped back down to about 17-18° a. It seemed like this was the trim condition. The slab was at about 22° nose up and rather than chance setting up an oscillation in pitch, by getting into this deadband area of between 20-25° on the stabilizer, I let it set where it was at 22° and lived with this. About 17-1/2° a was what I was reading in the cockpit. I tried to make the initial part of the reentry entirely on ballistic control. Then as q and g started to build up I went to the aerodynamic controls. There wasn't any particular problem in transition between ballistic and aerodynamic controls. I think it's just a matter of conditioning yourself to use real small inputs from a trim condition. 0f course, being on the trim condition is the most essential thing.

(Did you fly your angle of attack all the way over the top?) I wasn't particularly trying to hold angle of attack other than to keep it within some limits. Here again, I was feeling out the ballistic control system more than anything else over the top. (Were you flying more q then a?) No, more a than q. (What time was your last BCS input? What was the q value?) I don't remember what the q value was but the time was somewhere about halfway between where g forces started to build up appreciably and where we reached peak g. I was still trying to damp out some pitch oscillations with BCS as q was building up, but I got off BCS about halfway through that phase. (Did you notice any b oscillations?) Yes, there was a tendency to hunt in directional sensing. It wasn't a bad oscillation. It seemed like about a degree and a half, if that much, on the needle. (Peak to peak?) Yes, peak to peak, and it wasn't building up. After about the second oscillation it seemed like it had reached its peak and it was just a steady thing. Then it seemed to damp out a little bit. (Damping out with aero controls?) I didn't make any control inputs at all to damp it out in order to fight it, I just let it go. (You have seen this on the simulator, though?) Yes. The same type of thing. (How did you determine when you were going to switch over to the aerodynamic control?) a seemed to drop off as q started to build up. (You can't sense it on the aero stick, you don't have feedback. (How do you know whether you have q or not? Were you flying the q-meter?) Yes, and you can feel g start to build up a little bit too. (So its really the acceleration you're sensing?) Yes. (Do you use them both at this time until you get a feel, or stop and start with the other one?) I use ballistic controls and then as I start to use aerodynamic controls I keep using ballistic and damp out any transients that I might get from over-controlling aerodynamically. Then I gradually come off BCS and more and more on aerodynamic. (Then it's the G-force that gives the cue for changing?) Probably the biggest clue is the g-force.

5. Glide energy management versus simulation - It was just about what we had seen in the simulator. I left the speed brakes out a little longer than I would have needed to. I came over Cuddeback a little bit low on Mach number, I think about 400 fps low, but right about on altitude and it didn't do anything detrimental to our high key position, or energy at high key.

6. Approach and landing - I kept it in a little close and burned off a little of the extra energy with the speed brakes because I couldn't get too good of a handle on distance marks from the touchdown point. The marking on Runway 23 isn't very good at all. So I kept it in a little close and had a little high airspeed, about 330 knots, during most of the pattern. (Not as good as the normal X-15 runway?) It's not marked as good as the normal one. You use other clues than just the runway and in the pattern, more than I realize. On Runway 23 it looks different and I think I just kept it in a little closer than normal. Touchdown was 300 ft short of the smoke pot at about 185 knots, I think, a little slower than normal. I was trying to break the rate of descent right at the last. It didn't balloon up but it stopped the rate of descent altogether. I came forward with the stick as soon as I felt the skids touch down. Slideout was straight ahead. I think I could steer enough to get off the runway either direction I wanted to and control the direction pretty well down to 80 knots or so. From then on there's nothing you can do. (You did do it this time, or you felt that you could do it?) I'm sure you could. I don't know whether the track will show any directional changes out there, but I was going from one side-to the other just playing with it and it seemed like I could feel the nose start to hunt towards the direction of input. Just with aileron.

7. Unforeseen incidents - No unforeseen incidents.
 

There wasn't anything really bad. I guess it would be establishing pitch during the terminal phase of the reentry (Holding your angle of attack, pitch attitude?) I don't really remember any particular problem there. One difficulty I did experience was in determining pushover when we got to 800 fps rate of descent, stopping it at 600 fps. I had used g as one of the primary variables, or handles, in the simulator, going to one g. One g is hard to determine at this portion of the reentry because you are decelerating so fast you are thrown forward on the straps pretty good and it's difficult to sense one g or transient in vertical g. You can fly precisely but you can't feel it, you have to fly it from an instrument (Because of the deceleration?) Because of the deceleration forces, yes. (This would be right after you pushed down following the reentry?) Right. (Do you want to rate that the hardest part of the flight?) Yes, stopping right on the suggested rate of descent. I would rate them as shown above. I can't really think of any real difficulty that was in any portion of today's flight. The control system was so much nicer on this flight. (Do you think the fact that you don't change the ratings might be due to the transient nature which you are going through? You know that it's going to get better, you know that you're not going to be subjected to this long?) Could be. (Do you think this rating would be the same if you had to fly at that point for a long period of time?) No, I imagine that the longer you have to fly at any condition, the lower the ratings will be because of that reason. The less favorable the rating would be. (You wouldn't like to fly an airplane like that for an hour? This is a long period of time for any reentry vehicle, maybe some that will be flying that for minutes instead of seconds.) Oh, I don't think there would be any problem in flying it that way for the length of time that our whole flight lasts, say 10 minutes. (What do you think your rating might be if you could extrapolate?) I don't know.