Post-Flight: 2-46-83
DATE: July 20, 1966
PILOT: Maj. W. Knight
Ok, this is on #2 and
everything went real well all the way up through the checklist. I kind
of anticipated some communication problems in the turn, and kept going
right through the checklist. We got ahead about the three or four minute
point. I said something about, that I did not hear the four minute point,
but it was the three minute that I did not hear and I went on right through
it. Then, after we got all through somebody said three minutes, so it gave
us a little extra time there, But everything went real well, I launched
and hit the throttle right away. It must have come on pretty fast. I did
not miss it or have any problems finding it. When I looked down I was 10°
alpha and got it up to 11, and either I was not trimming fast enough or
was not using the trim enough, but it slipped down to 10 every so often.
But the theta came right at 26 seconds, which was pretty good on the simulator.
Pretty close. From then on it was flying at theta, and the calls that Bill
made were real good. At 51 seconds, and when he called 70,000 feet I was
just under Mach 3. Just under it, so I thought it was going to be pretty
close, and all the way up then until shutdown things were going real well,
except that the needle was displaced about two to three degrees to the
right on the way out. Beta needle, I put in the rudder a little bit to
start it back, and I thought well, if I zero the beta needle then when
I shutdown I will get an oscillation anyway with rudder, so I just let
it go, At shutdown I thought I led it enough, and I did not have any trouble
shutting it off where I wanted it. I had my hand on the throttle the whole
time, and when I saw 51 I yanked and shut off. We must have gone a little
faster, because we went a little higher. That is the only thing I
can account for the altitude. Going up after shutdown the airplane wanted
to roll to the right, and it was not quite as good as the simulator, I
don't think on the basic airplane. I needed reaction controls almost immediately
after shutdown, whereas, on the simulator you can fly for a long time on
the controls aerodynamic. But here I needed reaction controls right away,
Bill called the 170 thousand, and I had already checked it about 160 and
we were over 1000' per second, it had not come off the peg yet so I had
a suspicion we were going a little high. We got the experiment on and I
felt the doors come open, and I started flying and the airplane came back
level a lot sooner than I expected. It was nearly as much time as I had
anticipated from the simulator. o the pitch tracking was not too good.
On the way down the light went off, and shortly afterwards I got the switch
off and speed brakes out, after we had started down. I fired the reaction
controls once, in pitch, it felt like the airplane dropped right out from
under me. It felt like it pitched down. I don't know what it was and it
was not as, well I suppose it was about the same as it was in the simulator.
It appears to be a little bit more difficult in pitch than I anticipated,
and it probably got little bit ahead of me on the way down because I, the
first thing I noticed was I had full reaction control in roll trying to
straighten it out and it was not rolling. I looked down and I had probably
close to 100 pounds of q, and then I came in with the aerodynamic controls
and it straightened out all right. I had a good 16° alpha most of the
way down. There wasn't any problem there. Once we got a little bit of a
on it, and it was headed down in good shape. Coming level at 80,000, Bill
called it at 80,000, and watch the H dot and about that time it came off
the peg and started up. I got a call that the entry was a little bit hot
so we did not come up to 200' per second. I think we stopped at about 400
and kept it coming down and the q got up to about 1050. From there on it
flew very nicely. Visibility was not as good out of the airplane as I thought
it was going to be. I had, not a difficult time, but I had to get up out
of the seat to look over the left side to find the lakebed. Flew around
the lakebed and the landing and the flaps gave me a little bit of a good
trim change, and I ballooned a little bit and then just rolled in the trim
and flew it on down to touchdown. Touchdown should have been real good
and I pushed right afterwards and then pulled. I knew what he was supposed
to say and I heard him say pull. I did open the .......... tube at about
50 some thousand coming down. I guess it was around 1.5 to 2 someplace
in there. (?) Yes, and there was nothing, nothing on it. Touchdown and
rollout I could see it starting to move to the left and I held in right
aileron for a long time and it was just holding its own that's all, and
once I let loose then it continued off to the left. (?) No. Touchdown was
probably 200 knots today. It should have been very good. Well it happened
about that time. (?) Yes, nose up. I want to look at this and see what
actually happened there. It looked like it was going to take off right
straight down. That surprised me a little bit, then I did not use too much
BCS any more, I cranked in full trim. (?) No, I don't think it was up to
1 g. It could have been. The 1 g could have built up before I really felt
it. (?) No, I didn't, I don't think I put too much back force on it. I
rolled in the full trim and made sure I had full trim and then kind of
let it set to see where it was going to steady out, and then once I got
everything squared away, after this I was on, I was on 16 and it was holding
there and it seemed to be very good. It agreed real well with the simulator
as we had flown it before, The roll test wasn't nearly as bad as I had
anticipated it, and not nearly as bad as pitch test, but the airplane came
level before I realized it and it got way ahead of me right there. I did
not expect it to come level quite that fast. When I saw it was level and
I looked outside, sure enough we were level. (?) There doesn't seem to
be, it seems as though you can control it very well but I had this persistent
right roll all the way over. After shutdown, every place, all the way over
the top until I got back in and got some q on it I had a right roll. (?)
I know, not in a roll, not as bad as I thought it was going to be.