2. X-15 radios - Were satisfactory.

3. APUs - Were satisfactory.

4. Damper system - Appeared to be satisfactory.

5. Flow direction sensor - Also satisfactory. "What was the sideslip reading before launch?" 2 degrees sideslip on the first reading, and it went down to about 1.5 degrees somewhere in there. This is before drop, and it straightened out right after drop.

6. Launch space positioning - Was very good.

7. Launch transients - I don't remember any real launch transients, any more than normal.

8. Engine start - Was satisfactory.

9. Unforeseen incidents - None.
 
 

2. q control - Was satisfactory.

3. a control - Was also satisfactory. It just seems that when we get past about 20 degrees stabilizer position on No. 2 airplane, you have to keep feeding in quite a bit of trim to get the airplane to stay on 10 degrees angle of attack, much less anything above this. I was oscillating between 8 degrees and 10 degrees and then she seemed to settle down on 8 degrees and I was trying to haul into it when the theta vernier started coming down at a very good clip. So I just held it on 8 degrees and got up on theta. However, the time to get to theta appeared to just about be normal for what we had seen in the simulator, about 28 seconds.

4. Altitude profile versus simulator - Was very satisfactory. I noticed a little pitching oscillation during the boost phase. I am calling this about a one-second period. "Did you damp it?" No, I did not damp it. I did not try to damp it out. One reason why I didn't try to damp it out was, I was over on my back heading for the blue sky and about the only thing I would have had would have been either theta vernier, or the alpha needle, or the attitude, and as far as I am concerned neither one of these are real satisfactory for damping out a short period oscillation. "What about the theta vernier, was the theta vernier showing the oscillation?" Just a little bit, just a very little bit. You could see it more on alpha than you could on anything else, though.

5. Unforeseen incidents - There were none, except this banging around in the cockpit that we experienced.

2. Stability in ballistic flight (RAS 0N) up to Star Tracker task - The stability was very good actually, except for this continual, loose, pitching oscillation that we were experiencing. The airplane seemed to be very loose in pitch, and also sometimes in roll as far as bank angle, but very tight in yaw as compared to the simulator. The simulator showed that we might get just a little bit of coupling up here at the high angles of attack. However, I didn't experience this, not at the 19 degrees to 24 degrees alpha part of the flight, anyway. "Where did RAS start firing?" The RAS came on at about 110,000 feet. "It was hard to tell whether it was before or after you started to pullup after burnout." I would say that the RAS came on after the pullup. "I was just trying to make sure that we understood what this pilot rating was. I would kind of like to get a rating on this pitch oscillation in this pullup. Did you call after you turned it on?" I called it after I turned it on, I believe, the RAS on. I believe I called this pitch oscillation twice, didn't I? I didn't try to fight the oscillation, such a short period situation, and it was neither convergent or neutral. "Long period?" Well, I am talking about the short period. What I am thinking about was the, little, seemed to be about a one second period. A little bit longer than this here, and that is what I was sensing. Well, something like this you wouldn't sense too much. I doubt if it would show up on the g meter, would it?

Getting back to the stability in ballistic flight, as far as theta, controlling theta, other than the pitching oscillation I would say probably about a 3. It seemed like we had to lead quite a bit with tab for trim, more than what we had to in the simulator. Bank angle in ballistic flight, I would say about 2 1/2. And also about 2 1/2 for Psi.

q 3 , f 2 1/2 , y 2 1/2 .

"But you didn't attempt to manually control this pitch oscillation?" No, at no time did I attempt to damp this oscillation out. "What rating would you have given in pitch if you had tried to hold it precisely?" I think I would have fed it. To try to hold it precisely, I think I would have given it a rating of about 4 1/2 or 5, if I had to control this sort of thing. Also with the ballistics, I stopped flying the aerodynamics control, where you have a simple task such as the Star Tracker task, if you get an airplane with RAS working; for you to try to damp something like this, you might run into a little difficulty, whereas you might end up feeding it, than actually damping it out itself. I think Joe Engle ran into this one time.

3. Controllability in ballistic flight up to Star Tracker - I would rate about 2 1/2 across the board, I guess. Except when the pitch oscillation was set up. Although I didn't attempt to damp any of the pitch oscillation, as I say, I think the period is such you would end up feeding it.

4. Describe and rate the piloting task to attain the desired attitude for the Star Tracker experiment -

q 2 1/2 , f 2 1/2 , y 2 1/2 .

It was a very simple task and the fact that we have a very sensitive vernier setup, in the Star Tracker instrument itself, gives you quite a bit of warning when to make a control movement. The instrument in the airplane, however, doesn't seem to match the simulator. In other words you go over say 10 degrees, you don't get 10 digits, at least on roll, and the same thing on pitch. "It is not perfectly linear. It should be close enough that you probably couldn't tell the difference. If you can tell a difference, you have got a sharp eye or something is off." Personally, I don't think we need the digits. "I don't think we do either. In fact, if you went less sensitive, we could cut down the sensitivity." No, I would like to see us hold what we have here until we evaluate the Tracker a couple of more flights.

5. Describe and rate the ability of RAS to maintain the desired attitude for the Star Tracker experiment -

q 3 1/2 , f 3 , y 2 .

The RAS worked very well in yaw, and held the airplane very tight going over the top. However, in pitch and also in some roll excursions, it appeared to be very loose. I would say 3 or 4 times more loose than what the simulator showed it. "Could you detect the firing of the pitch rockets?" Yes. "Were they fairly close together or a long time in between? Could you give us any idea what kind of rate you might have had, because they were supposed to have been set for 0.5 deg/sec." I didn't really hear any bang-bang sort of actuation. In other words, they didn't seem to come very close together, really don't think the RAS was actually talking care of this pitch oscillation, as it should have. "When they did fire, did it seem like you got a response?" Yes, when they fired we got a response. I was using ballistics all over the place, but one thing I did notice was that the yaw rocket seemed to be holding the airplane better than what the pitch rocket was. For pilot ratings, I would, in pitch, say about 3 1/2. And the roll, about a 3, and in yaw I will say about a 2. It was doing a magnificent job in yaw, very tight.

6. Describe and rate the controllability for any corrections used during the experiment -

q 2 1/2 , f 2 1/2 , y 2 1/2 .

As far as the BCS, the BCS responded very well, in fact, being on a heading when we started the experiment, actually cuts down on the task tremendously. The heading indicator was just about 1/8 of an inch off. I gave it a little nudge there with ballistics, and brought it back and it drifted off again. It just seemed like the airplane wanted to drift its own little way on BCS. "Which did it drift?" To the left. The Star Tracker heading vernier tended to drift to the left, and the task of getting it back was no real problem, I would say. The RAS was doing a lot better job than I was. But once you get it on there, the RAS takes over and I don't really remember during the 20 second period that we were on the Star Tracker experiment, whether we got a real pitching oscillation.. Did it show up on the telemetry? I don't really remember having to be concerned with any real pitching oscillation during the Star Tracker experiment.

7. Controllability during initial and terminal reentry -

Initial q 2 1/2 , f 2 1/2 , y 2 1/2 .

Terminal q 2 1/2 , f 2 1/2 , y 2 1/2 .

For the initial, getting up on angle of attack was really no task, and once you got your trim in there it was actually no real control problem. I would probably say about 2 1/2 across. Other than this low persistent pitching oscillation, that we got from the time that we got on angle of attack to the time that we came level, I didn't try to damp this sort of thing out. This was more of an annoyance to me than anything else. And, as far as a terminal reentry phase, there was no particular problem and I'd also rate it about 2 l/2. "Could you differentiate on the different parts of the reentry?" No, I don't think I could, RAS was keeping the airplane pretty well trimmed up. Once I got aerodynamic trim in there. "Did you manually disengage RAS?" I manually disengaged RAS at about 120,000 feet, and when I did, the airplane all of a sudden tended to be a little loose, but we were increasing the dynamic pressure at such a tremendous rate that she tightened up again.

8. Describe and rate the overall roll tasks for the yaw and roll dampers off -

q 3 , f 3 , y 3 .

When I turned the dampers off, the roll and yaw and ASAS, airplane acted a lot better than I thought it would. There was no real tendency to roll off either way and with the damper off with the little bit of task that I did, and the dynamic pressure we had attained here, the task would be about 3 across. I couldn't differentiate differences in any of the modes. As far as the pitching oscillation, I didn't experience it here. But we didn't do any real pitch task, but as far as the yaw and roll, I would say about 3. Very good airplane with dampers off. "Did it improve when you turned dampers off?" No, it wasn't anywhere as good as with dampers on. With the dampers on, you're really surprised when you turn them off and see just how much you need those little buggers.

9. Describe the response for the:

10. Glide energy management versus simulation - I really have no way of telling here, but we, if I were to comment on it, I would say the glide energy was very much more than what the simulation showed, but we have known this to be true in the past. The energy seems to be more with the airplane than with the simulation.

11. Approach and landing - There was no real unforeseen problems here. I came in high and fast.

12. Unforeseen incidents - There were none.
 

Well, here again, I would probably say the pitch over to zero g was probably the most adverse piloting task. Not from the standpoint that the airplane didn't respond, but to maintain zero g after you got on it with the pitching oscillation that we were going through as we were going through different Mach number levels. You had to constantly be alert to come back on, otherwise we would have gone high or low in altitude. But as far as describing the task, I would probably say this would be about a 3. "Across the board?" Across the board. Well, let's make it 3 across the board except for roll and about 3 1/2 in roll. I constantly had to be putting in some bank angle to get a wings level condition.