2. X-15 radios - were normal.

3. APUs - were normal.

4. Damper System - normal.

5. Flow Direction Sensor - We still got that 2° sideslip before drop that we have been mentioning in the past. "Yes, I noticed that on the ground too."

6. Launch transients (q, f, y) - There were no launch transients. I was launched a couple of degrees off of heading to the left and corrected during the climbout.

7. Launch space positioning - was good, very good.

8. Engine start - was normal.

9. Unforeseen incidents - We had an unforeseen event just before launch. We had a sticky metering valve in our pump that shut down the manifold pressures and we had to go to reset and prime again. In other words, through the sequence before we launched.

2. Roll and/or yaw out-of-trim indication - I had no indication of either one of these.

3. Altitude profile versus simulator - I feel like it was right on. We had some discrepancy between radar altitude and what I was seeing inertially in the cockpit. The highest the flight plan called for was 95,000 and I read 96. I didn't at any time, get over this in the cockpit. But we have to assume that our radar altitude is going to be about 2 to 3,000 feet high anyway as it normally is.

4. Unforeseen incidents - none. "Did you see any yaw indication in the latter part of the boost, or this roll oscillation that you saw on a previous flight?" No, except for the short period rolling oscillation. I mentioned before I went into the pulses I didn't notice any particular yaw with this sort of thing. Of course, I didn't look at b but it didn't appear that the airplane was yawing. But as far as that long period rolling oscillation, I don't remember really experiencing that one. It could have been there but it wasn't apparent to me. "There was nothing degraded as far as the stability going from 4800 to 5200 fps?" No.

2. Roll and/or yaw out-of-trim indication - there were none to speak of. In fact the airplane, because of the way I was doing the pulses, would decide to take off either way. I was thinking to myself at times that the airplane was beautifully trimmed up.

3. Controllability following each pulse maneuver:

Maneuver Velocity a Pilot Rating

Pullup 4800 10° q 2.5 , f 2.5 , y 2.5 .

This was nice and slow easy pullup. I kept coming off 10° and 9, but there was no trouble trying to hold it, and I would rate 2.5 across the board on these. "Were the dampers on?" This is with dampers on. 0f course they have a 5° pullup here. "It was actually 10°?" Well, right. We did a 5° which you can't really call a pullup, it was just attaining this 5° alpha. It was a little less than 5200 fps. The flight plan called shutdown and keep pitching over at 0 alpha until you reach an h-dot of about 150 and then come on up to 5°, but the actual 10° alpha pullup was around 4800 fps. Is that the one you would like to speak of? That is the one that I am classing as 2.5 across the board. This was just to maintain a dynamic pressure. In other words, set up a profile to come back. "Controllability here was real smooth?" Right.

Maneuver Velocity a Pilot Rating

Pitch pulse 4000 7° q 3 , f 3 , y 3 .

And as far as the pitch pulse was concerned, the first one, as the records show, appeared to be neutrally damped to something and positive damping. I didn't try to stop this one here. I was just wondering how I could rate this sort of thing. As the airplane started to go over after a couple of cycles I would put in a little stick input and the airplane would seem to respond somewhat. The only thing is trying to take each one of the pulses out particularly and trying to rate a control task. I think it would be somewhat difficult. I could make an across-the-board agreement here and say that probably about 3 for just about every task I tried to do, dampers off because it wasn't bad at all. "All operations with dampers off and you would rate it as 3 in all three modes?" Right. I didn't ever see any appreciable difference in any one of the pulses except for the first pitch pulse which did appear to be neutrally damped. The others, if I had kept it up, I could have just flown back to Base with it damped pretty well. "You had plenty of lateral control authority? You didn't overshoot when you stopped the controlling?" No, I think when you get the internal records, you will notice that I jabbed the sidearm just a little, I started holding on to the sidearm on the first yaw pulse to see which way the thing was going to roll off and I took my hand off and then grabbed it again and gave it a little jab here and there. This will show up on the internal records. I will just rate the whole thing as a 3. To show you a difference is impossible because I don't think that there was that much dissimilarity between any of them. The airplane seemed to have positive stability in all phases. "Are you satisfied with the lateral-directional characteristics?" Yes, I am completely satisfied with what I saw today in the area that I was flying. It may be nice to go back up and get some high angle of attack pulses next time.

Maneuver Velocity a Pilot Rating

Star Tracker 2000 q 2 , f 2 , y 2 .

attitude acquisition

This came just slightly below Mach 2 and the whole thing was real beautiful. I could fly just like an ILS. I would rate it 2 across the board, with the dampers on. "Were you aware of lateral cycling during the time that you were getting the pulses?" Lateral cycling, no. When I turned the yaw damper off I noticed that the airplane, although it was still somewhat squirrely, didn't particularly have this little short period rolling that we mentioned. It did it when I cut the pitch off. "You still noticed it?" I still noticed it. But not when I cut the yaw or roll damper. "Do you think it was coming from the damper system?" I believe it was. I remember remarking to myself at the time that I thought this just didn't seem to be the airplane itself. Particularly after the first couple of yaw pulses when I cut the roll damper off. You are flying along and you get something like this and then you cut the roll damper off and it seems like the airplane smoothes out somewhat. Although it is still somewhat squirrely and I get that short period stuff. I can't think of any other maneuver here. We omitted that last rudder pulse with the brakes out. But I can't really see a lot of difference with the brakes in and the brakes out on this. You might be able to pick it up on the internal records.

4. Glide energy management versus simulator - I would say that the simulator hit it right on. It was comparable.

5. Controllability during the approach and landing -

q 2.5 , f 2.5 , y 2.5 .

I would say 2.5 across the board.

6. Unforeseen incidents - The only unforeseen incident was the fact that I went steaming down south a little bit more than I wanted, I thought I had 10,000 feet more altitude than I had and I really had to rack it around. I would say this was the high key phase. I had more energy than I needed but less than I wanted.