PILOT QUESTIONNAIRE

Flight 1-61-101 Pilot: Capt. Joe Engle

I. PRELAUNCH AND LAUNCH PHASE

A. Evaluate briefly flight performance of the following items during the prelaunch period and/or the launch maneuver. 1. Ball nose operation - was normal

2. Damper system - as follows: The yaw damper, yaw SAS came off at launch, reengaged, stayed engaged until during the reentry. The SAS worked pretty good, well this is launch and prelaunch. It dropped off and reengaged and stayed reengaged.

3. Launch transients - were normal

4. Unforeseen incidents - No unforeseen incidents other than the yaw damper and the reflections in the instrument panel.

II. BOOST PHASE A. Evaluate flight performance in the following areas during the "power on" portion of the flight.
1. a control - seemed real normal.

2. q control - seemed real normal.

3. Altitude profile versus simulator - was right on the money all the way up. "Would you comment on your transients just before shutdown?" Yeah, well, it was just as in the simulator. As q started dropping off to about 200 I would guess, going through 120, 130 thousand, the airplane response, of course, dropped down and I was going to engage RAS, but was unable to because of the acceleration. Got a pitch oscillation going and ended up, I think at shutdown with an oscillation, I didn't check the data, but I think it's probably about 2 to 3 degrees high, maybe 2 low and 3 high, something like that, oscillation. Other than that, no unforeseen incidents in the boost phase. Other than the lighting again.

III. GLIDE PHASE A. Evaluate flight performance in the following areas during the "power off" portion of the flight.
1. Burnout transients - I sure didn't notice any burnout transients, the airplane was at a pretty good roll angle, 20° or better, I guess, and about 4° I think of yaw after burnout. When I engaged the RAS and then brought it back to wings level and yaw back to zero. "Would it have been better if it'd gotten q to zero and then engaged the computed b?" No. I switched it over and, in fact, I was kinda glad after I'd done it, I didn't intend to do it this way, but after I had switched it somebody said do you want to check to make sure that the polarity is the same and so I was kinda glad that it was off to one side a couple of degrees and I switched and then stayed right on that same side. "Comments about computed b?" Yeah, well, like I say, I didn't plan it that way, but after it happened I was glad it stayed on the same side. "Very good." It's the only thing I've done right all day.

2. ^·y operation - or computed beta operation was real good.

3. Ballistic flight:

a. Controllability with BCS - gosh

q 1 1/2 , f 1 1/2 , y 2 .

b. Stability with RC -

q ? , f ? , y ? .

4. Reentry:

Let me make some comments since this is a different questionnaire on the ballistic flight portion. The control task was in my estimation, real easy to perform, real easy to control the pitch angle and a was even following along even over the peak, a was following along. " ??? " "It didn't look it on our TM real time record." Yeah, there was for awhile, but for an awful lot of the portion ... "Comments about a responding to BCS inputs?" Well, it jumped around an awful lot; anytime you make an input with BCS it would jump.

But theta was real easy to control and the rate, it was real easy to get a nice slow steady rate going with it and stop it and get it going back the other way. I thought it was much easier than in the simulator, partly because of the mechanical problems of the simulator having a lag in the ball or jump in the ball. "Was this your primary control mode on this time, you didn't have to worry about roll or yaw?" Oh, I was watching it and I made some inputs in, but it was real easy to control roll and yaw. "You really control it manually rather than letting RAS take over the damping?" Yeah, I think so. I'm sure of getting a lot of help from RAS in roll and yaw. I may not have, but I'm sure I was. I think it would help in that. "Did you ever find any time where you might be fighting it?" No. "Could you sense any lag between your inputs and RAS inputs, like normally it will cut off when you make an input?" No. "No problem?" No.

a. Evaluate control required to trim and fly a during the reentry.

I think I set the stabilizer at, gee, I'd guess maybe about 240,000 feet or so, I forget when Bob's call came, but, I remember setting the trim on the stabilizer and checking the position on the side indicator at 25 degrees, and as I recall, a was lower than the 21 degrees, it was under 20 degrees and I was trying to bring it up, I remember trying to bring it up but the TM shows it was over 20, in fact it was closer to 20, what, 23? 24? "Indicated 25." 25. But, as q began to build up, by that time, I had gotten the peroxide low light and turned the RAS off. The RAS wasn't trying to hold it up, I could seek this trim without the benefit of RAS. No. I don't think so, I may have made a BCS input, a pitch input to try and hold a. At any rate, as q started to build up, the yaw damper disengaged and I couldn't get it to reengage and this was also about the same time that the peroxide low light was on and I was trying to reach over to get the transfer switch on, and I couldn't reach it with my left hand, so I decided to just wait on that rascal rather than turn loose of the right stick because it wasn't trimmed. The airplane wasn't trim and I was trying to stop the yaw with aileron control, I mean using b technique. I couldn't get it stopped, so I started easing off on a and that seemed to first slow it down and by easing off a little more the oscillation began to converge and then I came back in on the stick to get the g built up because q was building up by then, I think about 900 q was about as high as we got and then after the reentry and after the g was bled off the yaw damper engaged and stayed engaged until landing.

Dampers engaged - no problem with roll. Yaw - If you are going to transfer this rating over to the characteristics of the airplane, it was real frustrating not to be able to control the yaw oscillation. Real frustrating or maddening, whatever. I was working to stop these oscillations and get it back to O but at no time did I ever feel they were going to go divergent and the airplane was going to go divergent. It was not the kind of a thing that made you feel uncomfortable or sick to your stomach. "But you know that you do have a structural limit that you have to keep the beta within certain bounds with q coming on like that?" Can you keep the airplane within certain bounds? Beta limits - "How much beta would you accept during the reentry" - well, I would certainly accept 5° if that's what it was. But I do not know what the limit is and that is why I am asking you - what is the limit?

Max beta-q for 500 g. Well, let me just put it this way. I could not have controlled it within -- I could not have kept it under 3 or 4° beta, I am sure, and by letting it alone it would not have gotten over 5°. As q came on the magnitude decreased and it started to damp itself out. Was the needle going up towards the stop? Oh, heavens, no. No, the needle was never out to the second little dot. But it was just an oscillation that got going and I was not able to stop it.

b. Controllability: Initial q 3 , f 1 1/2 , y 4 .

"Really?"

(High g, high q) Terminal q 2 , f 1 1/2 , y 1 1/2 .

This pretty well blends in to this that we were talking about right here on the, in fact it is, this portion of the reentry. "After your, as you approached your peak g and then as you pushed over so you still have the b oscillation going from here?" Yeah, for the high g portion, but for the high q portion, now that's kinda separate I think, because the oscillations in b seemed to be pretty well tied in with angle of attack, and as I came off in angle of attack the oscillations in b would die down. Then as g eased off, a eased off, and the oscillation eased off. "How would you rate this portion?" During the end of the reentry, you mean?

Pitch: 2; Roll: 1 1/2; and by this time as g eased off, I'd rate yaw at 1 1/2.

5. Glide energy management versus simulation - The glide energy matched the simulation I'd say very closely.

6. Approach and landing - Approach was normal, and the landing was, whenever we got into this problem which, I think, was caused by the aft C.G., where the apparent presence of speed stability isn't there; once you make the flare, once you get the flaps and the gear down, and the airspeed starts dropping off, you don't have speed stability. In other words the nose doesn't drop off. You have to keep, you have to hold the same position, or, if anything, push forward a little bit. "You think you did this? You had it trimmed all the way nose down?" I think it was trimmed all the way nose down, although I wouldn't swear to that and I don't think I was pushing forward any on the stick, I think if it was it was because I had started a balloon, or had started the nose up and had to stop it, but definitely had to shove forward to stop any nose up pitch rate. "Just real light forces?" Real light forces.

B. Describe and rate the most adverse piloting task experienced on this flight.

The most adverse piloting task, then, was during the reentry at the initial part of the reentry where the yaw SAS was off, RAS was off, and this b oscillation got going. I guess it would be called the piloting task. The same ratings I gave before, I think about

q 2 , f 1 1/2 , y 4 .

Actually, the hardest thing during the flight was seeing the instruments during the climb portion, but that isn't a controllability task, actually, I guess.

No. The slideout was, I think, normal with this cross wind veered to the left a good deal, but I think that's probably pretty normal.