Pilot: William Dana

Date: April 4, 1968

B-52: 008

Well, this is Flight 1-75 on the 4th of April, 1968. In general terms it went about as well as any flight I have seen. The biggest snag of the day was the hold when our launch lake helicopter had to do some air to ground rescue work. We did a 30 minute turn over Edwards, and that did not bother me a bit, and I think that the rehearsal we had last Thursday smoothed everyone out on that. I was really pleased the way that all the pieces fit back together. Planes were dashing off and returning and checking in. At any rate, I don't think we had any problems outbound. Even any really severe radio checks - problems. The SAS checks went through like clockwork. I got through it in 35 seconds. For me that beat my previous record by a minute. At four minutes, I went to X-15 radio. I could hear John breaking my squelch. In fact, he was kind of .......... were kind of breaking squelch, and I'd hear him good for half a syllable and then nothing for half a syllable. So immediately I went to squelch disable. There was a lot of background noise, as there always is, but I could read, so right then I knew that we were going to go today. From then on I thought everything went like clockwork up to launch. (Did you ever get off the squelch?) Yes, but I don't know where the cockpit film will show it, it was after shutdown, but I don't remember where, Stan. This was pretty much the way I had planned to do it. I am reading him fine. It is just the noise when he is not talking to me which isn't all that bad. It is just like the harassment we go through at Albuquerque when they play the background noise to you. I was just pleased to death to be able to get off the shackles today and I figured on just flying the profile until shutdown, and then I'd get that squelch disable. I played it this way but I don't know when I got it off. John called "standby for shutdown" at about 4600 feet on my inertial gage, and I got my hand up on the throttle, and then I was watching the needle come around through Mach 5, and I think you will find, on the cockpit film, it was kind of wavering, and so when it looked like it was about to go through 5200 I looked at the clock. I think it is the first time in my life that I ever found time to look at the clock. I looked up and it said 79, so shazaam, off came the throttle and apparently we lucked into one here. I did not have much thrust misalignment. Did not have anywhere near as much as we had in the simulator. So I was not bobbing around in yaw and roll like I was in the simulator which has kind of an exaggerated thrust misalignment. I got the yaw RAS on very quickly, and then I was trying to get the wings level to get the roll RAS on, and about that time I got the 150,000 call. I looked, and I had about 145 at start which was about 50 high. Finally got the roll RAS on and the auto cutoff, and then I started fumbling around trying to get the alpha down, and I never did quite get the alpha down below three or four degrees. I don't know why, but it just seemed like, that I did not want to stir the cake too much, so I didn't. Finally going over the top, then I did just wamp the alpha down to zero. I got pretty much on my precision attitudes, and I got my pitch RAS on somewhere before I went over the top. I was doing a fair job of tracking. I had the needle, it was about 2° left but Manke had run it over to 1° left on me with these right heading corrections. In other words, I was holding 1° needle left during the boost to get the heading John wanted, which obviously was a good heading. Then, up over the top it went to just a little more over 2° left, and I wamped the BCS one time to get that within the 2° spec, and spent the remainder of the time tracking, controlling roll, which roll RAS was not as tight, it appeared to me as the other .......... Then someone called for the experiment down, and if my memory serves me correctly this was over 175,000. So I turned the switch off, and then I spent the majority of my time waiting for those G.D. lights to go out, and they never did. Finally John called me and said "hit the emergency retract". I hit it, and the two lights went out. Well at this time I think you can well imagine that my precision attitude tracking wasn't the world's best. I had other things I was more interested in, such as getting those lights turned off. But it wasn't all that bad either. Then I got a little behind the aircraft; from there on until 50 miles I never quite was at as high an alpha as I should have been. You can see that I went a little below track although probably in the end it almost canceled itself out. We were a little long on energy and a little high on Q, and I think that the two about canceled out. I was definitely a little low inside Cuddeback and brought the brakes in earlier than I had planned on, but I hit my high key between 35 and 40 and just about Mach 1, and I saw Pete's contrail come in there, and on downwind I saw him and his .(?How about the ASAS checks?) The ASAS checks I did, I didn't really get violent with the pulses, but I think they are going to be acceptable. ASAS was obviously working, because the pulses were dead beat and it worked just like I expected it too. Traffic pattern was a little tighter than I wished I'd flown it, and I can't tell you why. I guess I was hold #2 in the formation. I used a little speed brake on final, and then I guess I overdid that even, because I ended up landing 1000' short. The slideout was about the best I ever had. I stayed right on the black line and finally maybe drifted - what, about 20' off of the TM there. It was about as good directional control as I have ever had. Apparently we got a computer light somewhere. I don't know where we got it but I reset it after I finished sliding out, and the inertials did not look quite as good this time as normal. I was a little lower on altitude, and my velocity was reading a little higher than I am used to seeing. I did not get any trim change with the extension of the experiment nor with the retraction of it. I did hear it clank in. Just about the time the lights went, I think I heard both the retract and the doors slamming; if memory serves me correctly. It brings to mind another little phenomena which I would guess happened around 110,000 coming in, and that was some pitch down which, if I had to guess, I'd guess was the same thing that other people have experienced at some phase of re-entry. In other words it was longitudinal inputs, that to the best of my knowledge I did not put in, and they actually kind of felt like wind shears, but I really don't think we have too much wind shear at 110,000; or I would not expect it, but that is what it felt like. They were pitch inputs that I don't believe I put there. (?) Not that I know of. I did not work the trim hard enough today to have pushed it very hard.