Concerning flight 1-6Z-103, it, of course, was my first flight, everything went fine prelaunch, everything went just exactly as it should, after launch as far as I know the:
 

As far as the boost phase, I never had any complaint whatsoever about the roll system. I ended up mostly probably due to launch transients an estimated 10° left of the desired heading while I was going through my restarts, after I got my light and knew I was on my way home, as I remember it I corrected this discrepancy quite rapidly. "What did you take that out on, aileron or rudders?" Oh, with rudder, I meant to say, Glenn, I took it out with aileron which is the way you always make a turn. You don't skid an airplane around to a new setting, and I thought, I just cant remember during the entire flight having any criticism of the roll axis, I had quite a bit of difficulty getting my angle of attack satisfactorily high, I attribute part of the problem to the side stick requiring quite a bit of wrist motion, and the other part of it to the fact that the trim wheel is very difficult to reach, sidestick trim wheel is very difficult to reach, when you have large stick forces on. It's quite easy to reach when you are at trim, but when you're holding onto the stick tightly and making a pitch input, it's hard to get to the trim wheel and I think that were the trim wheel more satisfactorily rigged, I probably would have tended to be on angle of attack a little more.

"Are the forces that much different between the airplane and simulator?"

It's a good question, Glenn, why it should be different in flight than it was on the simulator. "Are you closer to trim when you're flying the simulator than on this flight?" It could be the acceleration field you're in, Glenn, even though it's not great at 50%, maybe it's in the longitudinal acceleration is just enough to change the feel of the airplane is the only explanation I have. "Stick." Yeah, it could change the apparent force on the stick or change the pilot's opinion of the force on the stick. In the simulator I was able to manhandle it quite nicely, and I hope by my next X-15 flight that I'11 be able to acquire the attitudes I want irrespective of the forces required. Maybe I was being a little gingerly with it today because I didn't know quite what to anticipate. "Do you normally trim back or did you pull force and then trim the force out?" In the simulator I'd been working very hard to establish my attitude then trim out the forces. I don't think I did that in flight today, and possibly if I had I would have found it more comparable to what I had experienced in the simulator. "You set up the attitude with force and then trimmed the force out?" I did that in the simulator. In flight today I think I was trimming along just right behind the force, in other words I was keeping just a very little force on the stick, now why this is I don't know, perhaps with my pressure suit on things were different, although I had practiced in the simulator with the pressure suit glove on and I probably had just a little bit of suit pressure today, maybe half a pound or so that changed the feel of things, I can't really put my finger on why the airplane was different than the simulator, but I sincerely believe it was. "More responsive?" No, I think the, in the simulator the sidestick forces did not antagonize me as much as they did in the airplane. The stick forces required for example to acquire 10° angle of attack, in the simulator it just seemed like it was no problem. In the flight environment today it seemed like it was a great deal of effort to keep my 10° angle of attack and even more effort to get to the trim wheel to trim out the forces that I was resenting.

2. Altitude profile versus simulator - Considering that it was a delayed engine light I think it was fairly similar. I was told to shove over about 2,000 feet low and I ended up going a 1,000 feet high. I think this is probably because I was once again gingerly I didn't wamp it right over to zero g like I had been in the simulator because I was a little apprehensive about an engine start if I overshot my normal acceleration on the pushover.

3. Unforeseen incidents - During boost, there weren't any unforeseen incidents that I can remember.

In the glide phase right after engine shutdown I retracted the speed brakes and commenced my handling qualities evaluation. I didn't do any very violent roll maneuvers because ... "How's burnout?" Oh, very good question, Glenn, about burnout.

1. Burnout transients - I was surprised, even though I should have been expecting it, how going from positive longitudinal acceleration to negative, changes your life because it indeed did hang me in the feet straps. I could back out of the straps by using a lot of effort, but it was much more comfortable just to hang in the straps and let the g's take care of me. It wasn't unpleasant, it was just a different environment and for that reason, probably a little uncomfortable, just the novelty of it. "You anticipate any problem reaching the throttle under 100% thrust?" I think I'd say yes I do, Glenn, from what work I've done with the throttle in that position. It's a self-compounding crime when you're at a hundred percent thrust, not only are you at about twice the longitudinal acceleration, but your throttle's also three or four inches forward of where it was at 50 percent, so you're fighting two problems at once there and I do anticipate trouble getting to the throttle at shutdown from full throttle.

The little handling qualities that I did, the roll seemed very pleasant. I did a left and a right roll and the pitch control was good in this area keeping the nose up while I was doing rolls and not developing a negative Hdot. The airplane seemed less stiff than the 104 in yaw to me, I don't know if this was true or if it was just that the rudder power is so much greater on the X-15 that I was able to get sideslips or large yaw pulses much more easily than you can in a 104. "Damping?" The damping, it seemed like there were about twice as many cycles to half amplitude or to tenth amplitude in the X-15 as I expected from my 104 experience, this is an impression and certainly wasn't timed or calculated in any way, Glenn. "Usually the way you can test as to whether an airplane is loose or not is how well it damps following a pulse." I think that this was my impression that it was very loose, I do also remember though on the two very small steady state sideslips I did that I was surprised at how little rudder it took to get a lot of side force on me and I wasn't at a particularly high q, I was probably at 6, or 700 q then and it just didn't take much rudder for me to feel like I had an uncomfortable amount of side force. "These two things give you a pretty good evaluation of what the yaw modes are going to be like. Do you think the airplane experienced adverse yaw during this time as you would see in an F-104?" Well, adverse yaw as I referred to it, Glenn, referred to aileron inputs, no I didn't experience any adverse yaw in the X-15. "During roll?" No, and these were very gentle rolls and I don't think I would have noticed it in any case because in the 104 you don't notice adverse yaw or even in the F-100 if you do a gentle roll. They were gentle rolls. I didn't notice any adverse yaw, Glenn. "You'll be looking for it in some other flights, I hope." OK, I'll try to find you some later on. "Also get these ratings down." OK, on this, "Pilot ratings." And this would be when, in the boost or in the glide, Glenn? "In the glide, during the rudder pulses." OK. yeah, during the rudder pulses as I remember the longitudinal control during the lateral-directional maneuvers it was say 1 1/2 or 2. It was very good in other words, roll was probably 1 1/2 during these maneuvers, and the rudders maybe I'd give a 2, for this flight I'll give it a 2 1/2 because I prefer a stiffer airplane than what I think I saw today. "Same ratings apply both for the rolls and for the sideslip?" Yeah, I think I wouldn't have had any complaint of the sideslip during the roll maneuvers so that the low rating I gave it in yaw would be under the rudder pulses in the steady state sideslips. The roll maneuvers I didn't have any complaint about the yaw because I didn't notice any yaw. "If you'd picked up a lot of adverse yaw it probably would have changed the rating." That's probably true, Glenn.

3. Glide energy management versus simulation - I think it was just about exactly what I expected from the simulation, certainly things were happening so fast there that I didn't give it any real scrutiny, but I got over Cuddeback at about the energy I expected and I got to High Key with just about the energy I expected, and all in all I was pretty pleased with the glide. "Speed brakes worked fine for modulating the flight path?" Yes they did, yes they did they, I think in flight you don't even notice they're slow like you do in the simulator, at least I didn't resent the time it took for speed brake deflection. I didn't have any complaint at all about the speed brakes.

4. Approach and landing - Everything went quite well until flaps came down. In the flare I think I probably started my flare, in fact I remember distinctly that I had started my flare quite some time before I was able to lower flaps because I was above flap speed when I started my flare. I started my flare at 330 knots, waited for the speed to bleed down to 300 and then wamped out the flaps, I got the pitch up transient that I was advised I was going to get, I couldn't seem to get to the sidestick trim wheel to trim out this transient, so I grabbed hold of the center stick with my left hand, established the pitch attitude I want, meanwhile trimming out the flap transient, the flap trim change with the sidestick wheel. Hi Jack. And then grabbed hold of the sidestick again and landed it. I had maybe just a little more rate of sink than I would have liked to have had on landing, and as far as I can remember I did immediately shove forward on the stick although the records will tell the truth on that one.

5. Unforeseen incidents - There weren't any unforeseen incidents in landing, I'd been advised of this pitch up with flaps extension and I think I'd have probably done a better job of handling it, if I had fitted into that trim wheel a little better.

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

The most adverse piloting task experienced on the flight was the control of the aircraft in the flare. Maybe we'd give it a 4 1/2 in pitch there strictly because of the mechanization of the sidestick and trim wheel making it difficult to keep large sidestick forces in and still be able to get your thumb onto the trim wheel to trim out those forces, roll was still 1 1/2 in the landing and yaw probably 1 1/2 too since I didn't have any complaints about it.