FLIGHT NO: 3-10-19 DATE OF REPORT: October 11, 1962
PILOT: Maj. Rushworth DATE OF FLIGHT: October 4, 1962
CARRIER AIRCRAFT: B-52 #008 LAUNCH LAKE: Delamar
PURPOSE OF FLIGHT: Investigation of Ventral Off Stability
I. Discussion of Previous Operations
B. The tail cone was partially reworked at North American to allow for the installation of the ultraviolet exhaust-plume observation experiment. Additional work must be done when parts are available.
C. The MH adaptive flight control system has been changed to be consistent with the airplane for a lower ventral off flight. The changes consisted of removing the yaw rate-to-roll-axis interconnect and the lateral-acceleration loop in the yaw axis.
D. The lower ventral was not installed for this flight.
B. Angle of attack position indicator CPT installed for correlation with angle-of-attack data and servo recorder data.
C. Two thermocouples were attached to the radar beacon for temperature monitoring.
D. Wiring for the lower ventral GSAP camera sync circuit was completed.
E. A pressure transducer was installed on the #2 hydraulic pump discharge to obtain data on pump pressure delay on APU start.
F. Installation of inertial stabilizer internal temperature probe for readout during flight was completed.
B. APU Removal: The #l system hydraulic pump seal failed during hangar checks. APU S/N 26AN was replaced by APU S/N 21AN.
C. FM/FM Radio Interference: During ground checkouts an interference between the FM/FM TM and the radio guard receiver was noted. However, when X-15 was airborne the interference disappeared.
The interference was analyzed as follows: On the ground due to ground reflected waves or some other phenomenon, a sufficient amount of signal from the FM/FM TM transmitter was able to pass through the tuned RF stage of the guard receiver even though the stage is designed to reject all frequencies except the guard frequency. Having entered the guard receiver, the FM/FM TM carrier frequency beat with the guard receiver local oscillator frequency. The resulting frequency produced by the difference of the two beating frequencies fell within the band width of the second IF stages of the guard receiver. Here they were amplified, passed on to the detector and appeared as noise in the guard receiver output. A fix for this ground noise condition is presently being worked on.
B. Cabin Source Pressure Drop: During flight a partial
drop in cabin source pressure was experienced. Check out of the system
after flight revealed a sticky relief valve as a cause of this pressure
loss.
Perry V. Row John G. McTigue
X-15 Senior Project Engineer X-15 Project Engineer