I knew that the sun was going to be a problem. It was over on the right side and I did not have a right windshield, but I figured it could not be that bad so we went ahead.

The launch was no more difficult nor no more surprising than any other launch. It was a very smooth launch, and I got to the engine probably in a second and a half, as I recall. I looked at alpha and I was 18°. Like Bob said, "Don't pull on it."

So I got that squared away, and it started to rotate very good. There was more aileron required, at that point, than I figured on. This could have been due to the high angle of attack also, but it took quite a bit aileron to right it again. I am sure that is how we got off the track. After that, I wasn't too much concerned about the heading, I was with it within the 5° so I righted it and the vernier heading back within a couple of degrees and let it go there. But that was the only surprise really. It rotated very nicely and we were probably on theta by 43 seconds, as the simulator, and we've had it go as low as 42 and as high as 44.

The green lights were on all the way and the lox helium flow was pegged out. That had not happened on either of the engine runs. It had gone to 80 or 90 percent and stayed there, but this thing pegged out and it was just flat against the stop. The ammonia helium flow never moved. It stayed on the other peg. The green lights were working fine, and everything flickered as we went to pressurize pump, so we figured that they were feeding. We came up on 59 seconds and I went to 5° alpha. The sun was getting real bad at this point, and at 64 I went internal and at 66 I hit the button and nothing happened. I hit the rim of that switch and I felt it, and then when I moved my finger over and got it on the button it went about 67 1/2 seconds. When those tanks go it is the loudest bang and jolt I have had in a long time. It seems to be more noisy than anything. The airplane jumps right to zero g and it jumps hard at first and then steadies out on zero very easy, and its there. But the noises seem to be what I heard more than anything else. It sounded like the whole airplane blew up. I figured, well, it had to be the tanks, nothing else happened. I got another check going up through 90,000. When Bill called 90, I was watching H dot, at that time, and we were coming up on 90 and I was coming through 600' per second so I knew I was going to come low. As we pulled out the speed brakes we were about 200 to 300 feet per second, and I came up a couple degrees of alpha. I think I called out there that I saw that I was coming low and was going to pull it up a little. Before shutdown somewhere, 54, 5500 per second, we got a low line light. I started back on the throttle and I checked things and they all looked good and I said we were too close and I shoved it back up. We shut down at 6050 and that's as high as I saw on the indicator. Shutdown was very smooth and no problems from there on. The airplane did pop and bang quite a bit more above 55. Just before we got to 6 it was banging and popping quite a bit. I think three is the most I have heard on the other flights, and on this one there was probably six or eight bangs and pops of the airplane.

I heard the calls on five miles, and we did get it down to the target. We did get it down in pitch and roll but I don't know whether we came close enough to the target to hit it or not. After that I came back up on angle of attack and we had not been down to the low angle of attack long enough to set up any rate of sink, and I think that is why we went level for a long way, if not a little climb. We did start back down and I got the pulses at 5.5, 5, 4.5 and

from the calls that Bill was giving me I wasn't going to close the speed brakes anyway. I never did close them until we got down to about 1.5. I was having trouble finding the lakebed. You said we were a little left of course, and I looked out and the only thing I could see definitely was the river going down by George. I rolled it upright and I finally saw Rosamond and that's when I started to turn back to the right to get over the lake. Rolled back out and still kept it coming down hill. I called 50,000 going through the clouds and the minute I called it I knew something was wrong because you don't have cirrus up at 50,000 and I was just going through the cirrus. I was reading the wrong altimeter. I was reading the inertial instead of the pressure and it was right on with your call. In the meantime I checked the cabin altitude and everything was checking out just right. The velocity, in the pattern, was fine. I went to jettison and I did not feel anything. Nobody said that they saw me jettison and how it happened I don't have the slightest idea, but all three switches were in 'stop jettison.' That's why we did not have any jettison. We caught it in the pattern and finally got it jettisoned. I did push as soon as we got it on the ground, and because it was not jettisoned I was holding about 340 in the pattern, and it was a pretty smooth landing as far as I was concerned. I pushed and then pulled and I think it worked out all right. It was still jettisoning after we got on the ground, but I think we did get a lot of it out. I don't know what the weight was at touchdown. (?) Yes. (Didn't our indication show that he had completed jettisoning just as he was about crossing the railroad tracks?) Well, as I say, I don't know how that happened. You called stop jettison on peroxide and did it stop jettison? I don't know how I got messed up on the switches in the wrong positions but obviously I did because that is why I did not jettison. Outside of that the play was all right. They went down a little but probably 35 or so, and everything was looking good. It is

possible that the light had been on but I did see it. (?) At what time was this? (?) Probably about 5500. Well it stays on once it comes on. Yes. Probably not at that time because I was checking the time and everything else on the getting rid of the tanks. If they came on right there. (?) It is way over, (?) Well I would not have shut right then anyway. I would have gone to the tank pressure and made sure that we did have no tank pressures. (Jack. You were heading right for Grapevine.) That's right, and that would have been Grapevine and I don't like that lake. OK. (?) I did not notice any beta oscillations cycling of any sort. The airplane was flying very well throughout the whole boost portion. The rotation up to theta was all very nice. The only thing that surprised me was that it took more aileron than I thought. I think that was mainly due to the high angle of attack that we had initially. Yes. Yes, after we got it headed up then it did decrease considerably. But when I put in the roll, to correct it, we rolled it about 20/25° and I put in some roll where I thought we had some pretty good force on it, and it wasn't doing a thing. I really had to crank it over there to really get it straightened out. Once we got it straightened out and started up hill, then the force did decrease considerably. Of course, we were decreasing the weight too. (?) Not prior to launch, it was working. Oh, I was within 50 or 20 feet per second every time I checked with Jack, but when we turned around and headed into the wind and started down the track then it dropped off. (?) Right. This is where it happened. I can't tell you whether it was a sudden drop or whether as we came through the wind and back around whether it was this case or not. (? How about the altitude, did you get the same altitude on the altitude indicator as Jack called out?) Yes. I called 43, I think before launch, and I think according to the plot here that the altitude was pretty well on because I did not see over 100,000. (?) Well, it was 30 some. Yes. But this is not really uncommon to have it go that bad that far down the track. (?) No. H dot was 150. On touchdown, after we had stopped? H dot was plus 150 and the altitude was 30 some thousands. I don't remember the exact figure now. 36! Yes. OK that's right. (?) The time, Bill, on my clock it showed 122 seconds. I understand that the control room and everybody else showed about 135. So I don't know what the discrepancy was in my clock. I did not notice it except at shutdown, and that was all I am reading about 122. I don't think the weather was too bad. The problem is getting a heading vector to the field. I could have had a lot more energy here had I not been able to see the field. We could have come over with a lot higher altitude. But when I could see the river at George I knew exactly where I was and how far out I was and you could see through it. It was just the fact that I could not see over the nose and pick up the lake. Of course, I could not see it until I was pretty close anyway. But I really wasn't worrying about seeing it until I got here. I could tell pretty much where I was. Sun got awful bad and we won't have that anymore. (?) Yes. Although I did not get nearly as much beta with what I thought was achieved on the simulator. I looked at that twice. I did it at 5.5 and then again at 5 and it was pretty far. At one time I pushed in and it wasn't moving as much as I thought and I kept pushing it and I finally got it out about a degree and a half. It oscillated very nicely and about three oscillations. It wasn't bad at all. Not as much roll as you get in the simulator. (?) No. Right. Was that you that called the tank dropped, Bruce? Well there wasn't any doubt in my mind that two tanks came off. Yes. I could not distinguish that one came off ahead of the other. I thought they came off very clean, just a lot noisier than I had expected.