Well, it looked like a pretty good flight. I think when we went through our RAS checkout we were actually getting the roll to begin with. Did you see it, Butch? The observers definitely stated that we were getting right and left roll. Anyway, we got a pretty good check. Just about the time we went to pump idle, I noticed a series of lights flashing on the warning panel. There were at least 2, but when I looked over there, the 2nd stage malfunction light was still on. I went to reset and it didn't seem like anything happened. I couldn't read you too well, Neil, although I had my plan of action set up, but it looked like we may have been cutting each other out there a little bit. You were coming in very weak. Just about the time you asked if we were reading, you were "clear but weak," it seemed as though you deteriorated from that point. Be that as it may, we went ahead and reset again, got an igniter ready light and launched.

When I was on profile everything that the energy management people were telling me was higher than I was reading. When you told me to come back on thrust I was reading 2900 fps on velocity and I held it a little bit longer. I pushed over at 40 seconds, went through 60 seconds about 61,000 and this is about the only point of the profile I could possibly say I was off. At one time didn't you say 75, give out a call or so for 75?

Armstrong: 75 seconds.

McKay: 75 seconds, OK. Well, according to my inertial altimeter we stabilized about 64 or 65,000, climbed up to about 66, and I got a call from you saying we were heading down hill and my rate of climb then was reading about -50 fps descent. I pulled up a little bit and came back on power at exactly 3600 and was coming up to about 1450 q at this time. It took very little dive brake. I came out to about 20° and that seemed to be sufficient. We went up to about 4150 on velocity and stabilized. Dynamic pressure averaged about 1500, probably crept up to 1550, and held there. By that time I saw Cuddeback rolling under the nose and had almost determined then to cut off some of this high angle of attack stuff as you mentioned . I took another look at the clock and was going by 117, so I pulled up thinking we had enough heat data. Just about the time I'm making my pullup, we burned out. I got a 2° angle of attack rudder pulse, which generated a one-second cycle period in yaw, put the brakes out, cut down to 650 q and did an 8° or 10° pullup. I don't remember just exactly, probably an average between the two, and did a rudder pulse.

It didn't feel bad at all, just sat there and oscillated as the simulator showed to about 1°. I didn't put in a healthy input; however I think you will be able to see them on the trace. From there on, it was just a matter of getting a RAS checkout and residual rudder pulses at random. I probably recorded at least a half dozen of them. I know the RAS was working, for once in awhile I could see a whiff of white smoke above my head and just enough to where you wanted to follow it. First time I experienced it.

Question: Like the St. Louis Post Dispatch said?

McKay: No, just looked like it went through a little cloud of white smoke. Other than that, it was straight forward. We positioned for high key and landed. I touched down somewhere around the 2 mile marker about 190 knots. Essentially as far as the heat run, I think we got a good one. What was the highest altitude you read off to me, Neil, 67,000? OK then, we weren't too far off on inertial. Evidently you people were reading high on chamber pressures.

Armstrong: This we indicated instead of the 75% thrust. You were about 90 so I was just letting you know that we were reading the higher pressure.

McKay: OK, I checked my throttle. We weren't using the détente this time, just the marker for the 75% position, but a détente for the 40%. I believe this works out a little better because you don't have to feel for it.

Question: Were your speed brakes in doing the climbout?

McKay: Only at the 3600 fps point, and speed brake requirement was very similar to what we figured on the simulator. Quite a drag reduction because of lack of the ventral. The SAS check worked normally for both the monitor and the working channels, when we went to test. Yaw, roll, and pitch, tripped out in that order instead of roll last as we had expected, but ASAS worked normally after drop. I got quite a bit of roll off, and corrected for, and that's when I noticed ASAS on. I flew with it all the way like that. I never made an attempt to reengage.

Question: You turned the yaw damper off for the pullup?

McKay: Yes, the yaw damper was off and you got my call for the yaw damper off. After that we recorded a few rudder pulses.

Question: Did you use dive brakes on the letdown?

McKay: They're about 3/4 of the way coming in at the time because it appeared to me I was sailing right by Edwards.

Question: Did you have any trouble moving the speed brakes?

McKay: No, they worked OK. No trouble at all. Just a little residual, Bob, but that was probably little bit better than the simulator showed. Bob Rushworth brought this to my attention on the simulator from his last ventral off flight and I would say it's probably about 50% as bad as the simulator. You don't feel it, you have to be looking at the beta needle to catch this. Same thing at 2°, I mean low angle of attack.

Question: Did you get to negative g?

McKay: I got down to about a -1/2 g on the pushover then corrected for it. But the airplane didn't have any adverse problems with the ventral off, just like the ventral on to me, except maybe a little bit better with yaw damper off.

Question: What was your maximum angle of attack?

McKay: 10°. That's about the highest I got, I did a pulse at 10°.

Question: What speed was that?

McKay: About 3200. Glad you mentioned that. On this pullup, it appeared that we began to decelerate a lot faster than the simulator called for. We were doing these high angle of attack pulses, at the higher mach numbers and working down to the lower mach numbers, so we wouldn't end up in the bad stability area. It's a good thing you gave me a callout because when I saw Mach 2.2 or 2.4 coming up, I dispensed with anything over 5° and went ahead and got the pulses at lower angles of attack. I say I did a half dozen of them while heading for high key. I made one last callout at 30,000 feet.

Question: Did you notice any difference in stability after you put the brakes in?

McKay: No, I didn't notice any difference between the brakes in, rudder pulses at 2° alpha, and the brakes out at 10°, just a very little residual oscillation. Everything seemed to work normally. Good drop, good position. No question about making Hidden Hills at launch.