Pilot: William Dana

Date: June 12, 1968

OK. This is Flight 1-77. We had a few more squawks today than I would have liked to have seen. The first bad call that we made, and there were about five of us that could have rectified it. John Manke finally did. There were about five of us watching that B-70 taxi down the taxiway when we were obviously going to miss our takeoff time. I think that Eddie Ground could have called a halt to this. I think Raczkowski and Haley, between them, could have figured out that this was not the way to go. I certainly could have. I was sitting there waiting for someone else to do something, and finally Chase #2, in his roving vehicle, called out and said to "get the B-70 out of the way". The decision should have been made long before. So that was the first place I think we went awry. Second I guess, the second snag that I think developed was when we lost radar tracking. It seems to me that if we can spend six hundred thousand dollars for an X-15 flight, we could probably spend twenty-thousand dollars for an S band tracking capability. (?) Well that's fine, by God, if it costs us 100,000 to abort. So if we are going to fly this program lets fly it and if we are not, lets cancel it. Then I have a question for Lee Gardner, if he is here. OK. So at four minutes I turned my squelch disable off. I had been on the X-15 radio since about ten minutes, Pete. I could not read through B-52, and I turned the squelch disable off and I was reading you and so I launched. I heard "standby for theta", and then I quit reading you, so I thought, well by God I'll just turn the squelch disable back on. But would you believe I not only could not get my hand back there I could not get my head over to see where the set was, so I thought I would just fly this until burnout and then we will start talking to Pete again, and that is exactly the way it happened. The only check I got on velocity versus time was at 2500 feet a second indicated I was reading 46 seconds which is way slow. I would guess at least a portion of this is inertial velocity lag. But this is information that may indicate what velocity we actually shut down at. It may help analyze it. So it looks like due to the inertial velocity, which was way slow, or the engine was a little under thrust because that time should have been 83 1/2. I did not notice the clock any further. I was sitting and watching my inertial velocity gage and when it went through 5200 why a loud silence occurred. So I thought, well - we burned out a little early, so I turned the throttle off and started turning RAS on. Then after I got the RAS on I went squelch disable and started hearing Pete again, and about that time I looked down at my inertial velocity and it was decreasing through 5400. So you guys explain that one to me. The engine time was just like on Pete's last flight. Did not quit turning at China Lake. So I don't know what my max velocity was or what my burn time was. I heard Pete's call at 200 thou on my gages, and I was cleared to extend the experiment. I did, I think it went up at 198. I saw 218 over the top. My tracking, if it wasn't quite what you expected of me was because I was gazing fondly out of the right hand window where I saw nothing but blue skies. Then after I got over the top I got on my attitudes for a little while and tracked. Then I pulled the experiment in. I pulled it in when I was told to, put the switch down and then I started playing with beta a little bit. I could look out and I could see the L.A. Basin. I could see that it was overcast. I could see the San Gabriel Mountains. I could definitely see the yaw attitude as well as the yaw rate. So on this particular day it was clear enough, Pete, that I am sure I could have had enough heading reference to have re-entered it. Then the experiment had not come down, so I decided well I was going to hit the emergency retract in time to get it down by 200 thou, and just about that time Pete called me and said "bring it down". So I did. Well just like my last flight, within a second after I hit that emergency retract switch both lights went out and I heard at least one clunk, meaning either the experiment went down or the doors went shut or I may have heard both. But at any rate the timing was identical. I hit the emergency retract and both lights went out. At 170 I had my 20 alpha, at 140 thou I had 15° because I got a right handy pitch down at 140 thous, and there wasn't any input on my part. At 130 I turned the RAS off, and then everything was looking fairly tidy until somewhere in the vicinity of 100 thou. She started rocking in pitch first, and I was just starting to get nervous about that and it started rocking in yaw. The yaw frequency particularly was so high that I could not have done anything to control it. So meanwhile, I was running around my yaw SAS panel there trying to figure out whether I had a malfunction. I could not see any sign of a malfunction. The oscillation was not divergent so I did not attempt to take any action except that I was only pulling four g's, and I thought well that's just bloody well good; I have got control of it and I will just leave it that way. So I came out the bottom at 72 thous, as Pete noticed, then climbed back to 80,000' and came on home. I personally was never concerned at all about energy. I knew I had plenty to get home. We were well below nominal, but I did have 70 thou and 2. at Cuddeback and that certainly was plenty of energy. I can't remember any further snags in the profile. Got a nice landing and rolled down the black line until about the last 500' and then it veered sharply off to the right. I think that is about all the trouble we had. (Did you notice ...) Yes, Jack. I was just starting to reach for it myself. I said I was going to bring it down in time to have it in by 200, so I was probably intending to hit it at 205,000 and I indeed hit it probably about there. I am sure it was down right at 200. The experiment was (?) I was responsible for the pitch down at burnout, Glenn. I put in a nose down input and then I started turning RAS on and by the time I got back to alpha why it was slightly negative. That was all my doing. It is loose, of course, in pitch, and I just put in my nose over correction. There was no problem there at all. (?) Oh yes. My pattern was just a little higher today than normal. My high key was around 40,000 on my inertial gages which is probably about correct, because my inertials were good at landing. And so my pattern was a little high and wider than usual, and I pulled about 1.6 g's in the pattern. I got no buffet and I got no g suit inflation. I don't remember what my alpha was. The pattern was about as comfortable one as I have ever had. I did use a little speed brakes in it, but nothing like full speed brakes. Touchdown was maybe 500' further than the two mile marker. (as made by another well known pilot yesterday). (?) People tell me, Jim, that the experiment was on the way down and it was just coincidence. I am pointing out that my last two flights I hit the emergency retract, and that was followed immediately by clunks and amber lights going out. And that, of course, is all I know about what is going on. It doesn't concern me a bit because I have been able to get the experiment down both times. I think Northrop would like to get some correlation between what they are seeing on their data and what Vince is seeing on his. So that Vince is not screaming for an emergency retract while Northrop is watching .......... I will point out apparently that we have been allowing more than the normal ten seconds or whatever was allowed, before we hit this emergency and the experiment has not been coming down in the time it was supposed to.