Launch: Delamar Lake on magnetic heading 205°, MH-96 Adaptive, Roll hold "ON," Ventral off.

Launch point coordinates: 114° 58' N, 37° 37' W

1. Launch, light engine, increase to 100%T, rotate to 2g.

2. 2g - maintain 2g until q = 30°.

3. q = 30° - maintain q = 30°.

4. Pushover to 0 g. (H-dot = 800 fps).

5. Pullup to a = 2°.

6. Reduce thrust to 40%, modulate speed brakes to maintain slight longitudinal acceleration.

7. Burnout. Increase a to » 6°, maintain H-dot » +200 ft/sec.

8. Retract speed brakes, disengage Roll hold.

9. Switch yaw damper "OFF," perform dv pulse. At pilot's discretion, roll damper to "fixed gain" and/or "OFF," fly proportional to bank angle, then proportional to roll rate.

10. Peak altitude, maintain » 90,000 ft.

11. Roll and yaw dampers to adaptive.

12. Abeam Searles Lake, vector to high key - speed brakes as required.

P.C.: Yes, even with the short countdown.

B. Was the launch accomplished without incident?

P.C.: Yes.

1. Cockpit presentation

2. Ground guidance callouts

P.C.: I ran the flight identical to what we had practiced on the simulator. I may have been 1/2 second slower in getting to theta, because while I was checking the thrust level, I wasn't as rapidly pulling up toward 2g. There wasn't much difference. I then sailed onward at exactly 800 ft/sec climb rate, pushed down to zero g, and while I was in the middle of the pushdown, I flashed across the clock and saw it had only then reached 30 seconds. Right about then I was also getting a call from Rushworth, "29 seconds," subsequent to his having said "pushdown." Actually I beat him all the way around on that.

I began to have the sensation that we were running low, well before we came down around 400 ft/sec climb rate, because we were starting to build on q at a lower velocity, so I let it go to q buildup. When I hit 800 I noted I was still shy of 4,000 ft/sec, and was only at 70,000 ft. I had already made up my mind what I was going to do right then. So, I pulled the 3°a, decided that this wasn't getting me up on altitude fast enough, so I went clear up to about 5-1/2°a and got that H up there. I started closing on 80,000 ft. and then drooped back down to 2°a and it was a triple heat between velocity coming out at 5400 ft/sec and dynamic pressure coming out at 1300 psf. As a matter of fact, I felt I was close enough on altitude and when I saw it was hitting 1300, I chopped the throttle to 40% thrust.

Expeditiously is the word for the throttle chop I did, I was even surprised the engine kept on going. I jumped right off of that onto the speed brakes and hauled them out watching the velocity. By this time I was on 5400 ft/sec or just a needle width under it. q stayed put. I got the speed brakes full out and was checking back on a when much to my surprise the engine shutdown.

So, all I can say is that I used the cockpit presentation, the ground guidance callouts came at the right time, specifically to reinforce my already planned course of action, and the planned course of action went as we had practiced.

The only thing that was different really, was the sensation of the lateral residual oscillation, which picked up in intensity as the q did.

B. Describe and rate the pilot control task during the a = 0° portion of the climb.

q 1 , f 1 , y 1 .

P.C.: The pilot ratings have to be as shown. On pitch, it took a fair amount of attention, but I don't see how you can hit the right normal acceleration value if you don't pay attention. I had time enough to rattle around over all those indicators besides holding it down there. In fact, I was rather well satisfied that for once I had a decent panel scan. I even found myself waiting for something to happen.

C. Could roll and/or yaw limit cycles be detected at a = 0°?

P.C.: There was a limit cycle, a roll limit cycle, it came on at a q slightly under 800 psf. I got it again during the descent, but at reasonably low q. I think it began to come on around 500 or 600 q.

D. Describe and rate pilot task for the heating run from thrust reduction to burnout.

q 1 , f 1 , y 1 .

P.C.: Once again the ratings are as shown. I was able to adjust pitch angle while holding steady on roll and heading. Even though it was slightly erroneous on heading, it was steady on there.

E. How did you estimate the amount of thrust reduction?

P.C.: Throttle was first reduced to minimum, or 40%. Further thrust reduction was accomplished by use of the speed brakes. I sort of jiggled them depending on what I was seeing on the velocity and this was more or less an automatic thing. Moreover the velocity seemed like it was drifting toward the upper direction rather than standing still.

F. To what average value was rate of climb held during the heating run?

P.C.: It was probably between 400 and 200 ft/sec. As I homed in on it, I was checking the rate of q buildup versus velocity buildup against what altitude I was at. I wasn't attempting to hold any particular rate of climb. I was trying to get velocity, q, and altitude to come out so I could at least stay in the vicinity of 2°a when we got steady.

G. Comment on "roll hold" operation.

P.C.: I don't have any different comments on roll hold than I had for previous flights. The hold function appears to be a help if you don't over power it.

H. Note any additional pertinent observations during the boost phase of this flight.

P.C.: I don't know of any I can make without repeating what I have already said. It seems that this flight would be a rather certified demonstration that the indicators on the instrument panel are a lot more help than clock watching.

The windshield crack occurred apparently just shortly after burnout. It was about the time when I would have been closing the speed brakes.

A-A-O da ~ f q 1 , f 1 , y 3 . (in turn)

A-O-O da ~ f q 1 , f 2.5 , y 2.5 .

A-O-O da ~ p q 1 , f 3 , y 3 .

P.C.: The first thing I did was to turn off the yaw damper. I was headed uphill nicely I thought at the time, but it turned out it wasn't quite enough. I did a small rudder kick. Right then ground control asked me if I wouldn't make a few degrees left turn, which I did, and realized that this had gummed up that rudder pulse, but I believe I did this initial turn with the yaw damper off.

It seemed to gum the turn up, but I couldn't tell whether it was the airplane or me. It wasn't much of a problem even then, so I settled down and did another rudder pulse. It sloshed around but damping was good, where-upon it seemed and indicated to me that I could let go completely off the roll damper control which I did, and it sloshed a little bit and I tightened it up with roll attitude and got good control of it. It just seemed to get loosened up, to oscillate in roll and yaw.

I discovered right here I was trying to shove that right rudder in again and I got off of it. It disturbed the airplane some and I calmed that one down and it seemed I could stop any roll oscillation either by attitude or by roll rate indication. However, a desired combination of wings level plus zero roll rate, or desired bank angle was easier to deal with using the attitude indicator than it was to use roll rate. That roll indicator is smoother in the airplane than in the simulator. It doesn't seem to have that sudden surge every now and then.

I think the best rating you can get out of this deal was that I just got tired of paying all that attention to it, and I finally turned the dampers back on at about 3600 ft/sec. I could do it all right, but it just got tiresome, because you could get it steadied out and then I would move the pitch, move the stabilizers in pitch, and inadvertently tickle it a little bit in roll and I'd have to quiet it down.

It appeared that higher angle of attack at lower speed was more of a problem than it would be at the same speed at medium angle of attack, or at a higher speed at a higher angle of attack. This wasn't really a very large change. You could just tell it by the amount of jitter the airplane would do while you're getting it damped down. It also seems to be very sensitive to small rudder movements which would upset the roll lateral-directional smoothness even worse than lateral inputs I was making, but it didn't seen like it would be anything that you couldn't keep up with if you made it small enough. I'll rate the various phases of this controllability test as shown.

B. Over what range in Mach number and angle of attack were these tests conducted?

P C.: These tests ranged from 4600 to 3600 ft/sec and from 4°a or so, up to 11° to 12°a.

C. Was approach from high key and landing accomplished without incident?

P. C.: Approach and landing was accomplished without incident.

P. C.: See previous comments.

B. Compare flight profile with simulator performance.

P. C.: The flight profile came out rather similar to the simulator performance.

C. Compare airplane controllability with simulator.

P.C.: The airplane controllability in most respects was quite the same, except where noted, it seemed like the airplane was a lot better.