I could never actually see Hidden Hills from where I was sitting, although I must have been fairly close to it. If I hadn't gotten an engine light, I believe I would must have pushed down and headed for a spot that I couldn't see, and that would have probably been it.

At the drop, I inadvertently went to 100%. It came up with a pretty good boot there, and I immediately came back to 75%, and I'11 be darned if I can remember what the chamber pressures were. I set up a regular rate of climb, and got the plane up to 11°a then I felt some buffet. I had no trouble with roll. I didn't particularly sense a rolloff as I dropped. I may have unconsciously corrected for it. The first indication I got from NASA 1 was that I was at a low altitude indication on profile, and this sounded pretty good.

I may have been about one second ahead, and just about the time I was pushing over in the 40-second count and becoming level, I noticed a lot of smoke come up between my legs. I thought since this has happened before, we won't worry about it. I began to get little experiences of someone hitting the back of the airplane with a sledgehammer, but the noise was not as pronounced as I thought it might be. I set myself to experiencing those things, and during this time I looked down at the inertial altitude, and it kept telling me that I was climbing high on profile. My next indication was, I was going about 4,600 ft/sec at 45% thrust and climbing to about 68,000 ft. I had the speed brakes out to about 30%, and I reached down and I said to myself, "Well, I'll give it a little more speed brake," but I couldn't budge the brake handle. I reached down and gave the handle a little whack, and it seemed to budge a little bit, but not very much.

I never did find out what my true velocity was. I didn't look at it at burnout, but burnout seemed to be very premature. At about 120 seconds, I was all the way back in the throttle stop and I was accelerating. I looked down to see just where the throttle was and I'm not kidding you, this was a tremendous task, I was under a pretty solid g force.

When I burned out, I expected to get a call from NASA 1 saying I had better head for Cuddeback, but I looked over my nose and there was Edwards. I reached down and switched roll SAS. I'm not sure if I got to a 10 setting or not. I changed to the center stick at this time, but I felt I was high on energy, and maybe I had better dispense with the pullup because I could see Edwards right ahead. I was coming along about 3,000 ft/sec, which is pretty high and more than what we had programmed in the simulator. I made a half-way pullup, but the only reason I did the pullup was to get the rolls. During this time, I had decided to dispense with any zero a or 20°q because it looked to me like I was heading for Pt. Mugu.

"Speed brakes in," was the call from NASA 1. Just about the time I realized I was high on energy I got the call again, speed brakes open. I no more than cracked them and they stuck. I knew they were hard to operate, but I couldn't operate the brakes at all. I finally got them out, probably about 20°, and did the right turn. When I got the right turn call, I looked down and thought a left-turn might be better, but the right turn would have been okay. I made a left turn, and came back downwind.

I hit high key at 34,000 feet. I will say that I didn't particularly have my eye on that first mile marker down there. I went back to the planform that I had gotten around Hidden Hills and pretended that this was the lake, and I was trying to hit the shoreline. As it was, I rolled out down around the two-mile marker. I played it a little high coming in and got down to about 310 knots. I was just going past 300 knots when NASA 1 gave me a call, and I said, "Well, if I can get a little bit more energy here I can turn a little bit sooner." Just about the time I turned in, I realized that this was going to be a short-field approach so I kept about 290 or 300 knots all the way around. I landed using the sidestick, and I think that it is a little easier. When I touched down, I was heading in the general direction of the runway. I no more than touched down when I started to drift to the left, and this is why I cut across the runway to the left of the smoke bomb. I don't know where the smoke bomb was placed, but I came to a stop just about 200 yards ahead of it.

As I said before, it was a short flight. We got one bank hold, and this was rather surprising. The roll going into it was very good. I'11 say that we got 8°a or maybe 7°, but coming out of it took all day and I would class this at about a 3-1/2 rating. This is not something you like on a landing. The roll effectiveness was very poor.

Concerning the speed brakes, when I tried to retract them I couldn't actuate them then, but they finally broke loose. On NASA l's call, I couldn't extend them; they broke loose, but then from there on I couldn't get them past 10° or 15°. The data might show up better on this. (Note: The data showed 21°.)

I had to keep turning down my suit vent as I went up. It was very comfortable, but I think as far as the face plate is concerned, I kept a low position and this seemed to hold pretty good. One thing about this suit is the vent arrangement, as you go higher you get more comfortable.

The cabin pressure every time I looked at it was about 34,000 to 36,000 pressure altitude. Every time I looked down into the cockpit I could see strings of smoke oozing up, but when I began to slow down and vectored to high key, I didn't experience this at all.

The g-meter was a valuable aid, but the inputs that I really put any faith in were the calls from NASA 1. During this time I was occupied with keeping the dynamic pressure level. I saw 1450 q go by, and I don't believe I looked at it again. I was concentrating on using some rate-of-climb uphill, and it appeared to me that I had about 2,000 ft/min climb. The pressure and inertial altitude indicator seemed to indicate more than this, and it looked to me like I was going uphill fast. The last call I received was about 72,000 feet, but as long as I was maintaining some level of climb with increase in inertial velocity, I was pretty well satisfied.

I had to use a little sidearm stick to level off, just slightly, but another thing about this too, it seems the sidearm is always effective when the trim is very effective. I could actually get more attitude change in the airplane just by a little sidearm than I could in the simulator, and it didn't take as much time -- except on the climbout.

The time I went over to center stick was when I had to change SAS settings. It is very difficult to reach around the center stick with your left hand and try to change SAS on the center console. I think 1 probably went to center stick about two or three times while coming back on the figure 8 trying to vector to high key. I got a terrific sensation of g on the airplane. I must have been about 3.5g. I went over to the center stick to try to level this out a little bit to see whether I could get a better pattern and it didn't seem to help me much. I went back to side stick, and about this time I was heading downwind. I got NASA l's call about heading downwind, and from there on I used only the side stick, but it is rather awkward to try to hit that center stick mike, and try to make a call, when you are actually flying the side stick and trying to regulate the trim at the same time.

When NASA 1 said, keep going right, Rosamond looked pretty good about that time. I was at about 40,000 feet just about the time I was heading back toward Edwards. I would like to reaffirm here that when I found out I was high on profile, I decided not to pull up to the full 20°q, and get the zero g. I pushed down, after I got the roll, and my other maneuvers were to vector to high key and try to cut off my energy as much as possible for hitting high key, and this took a little doing, particularly with the dive brakes.

I think this sort of a flight plan, particularly with what we had to do right at the end there, seemed to be pushing from the energy standpoint. If I had a landing area probably about 50 miles further downstream it would have been more appropriate.

I could tell when I was coming to Three Sisters, and I did see Cuddeback. I could certainly see Edwards and NASA 1's calls were very helpful and they helped to verify what I was thinking, that the energy level was very high.

The engine was like the ground run, I didn't get a bit of vibration, I was impressed by the thrust, that's about the only thing.

In general, I would say that the profile we were flying on the airplane was much higher than what we flew with the simulator as far as the thrust. On the simulator I had retarded back to somewhere between 75% and 45% thrust, but after getting back to 45%, I felt like coming back down to a little more, but I didn't want to have a premature burnout.

JM:dmo

Typed: 9-4-62