Launch: Hidden Hills on magnetic heading 212°, MH-96 Adaptive, R.C. "OFF", BCS "OFF", heading vernier "Standby", ventral off.

Launch Point Coordinates: 36° 20' N; 115° 59' W.

P.C.: Prelaunch checkoff was without incident.

B. Was the launch accomplished without incident?

P.C.: The launch was accomplished without incident.
 
 

P.C.: In the boost phase things started out very normally. The first time I looked at angle of attack after I got the engine started and felt the thrust, I had 12°a and it started to drift down a little bit - down towards 10°. So, I put in a little trim, and it seemed to hold it for awhile and I checked the clock and at about 10 or 12 seconds I expected to see theta come into view, but I got the very distinct impression that the airplane wasn't holding the pitch angle that I wanted. It just seemed to drop off. I made another quick check and I was 10° a. Right after that I checked the chamber pressure for thrust and the airplane had drooped down to 8° a. I could feel it and started to pull back on the stick at the same time. I think it would have gone all the way down to 5° a maybe. I didn't trim but I thought with the little trim I did use it would stay up there. The low angle of attack didn't seem to make any difference because theta did come at about the right time. It just didn't feel like the same airplane, from the times I've flown it before. It didn't seem to want to respond to the trim. Maybe I wasn't using enough.

B. Was any change noted in the directional control characteristics during the heating run?

P.C.: I couldn't see that anything changed from what I had seen on the airplane before, or on the simulator. The airplane handled just as good as I expected it to or better, during the steady state run to approximately Mach 4.0.

C. Rate the piloting task during the heating run.

q 1.5 , f 1 , y 1 .

P.C.: I didn't see any problem with the heating run at all.

P.C.: I turned the yaw damper off first, and I think that's the time I recognized some yaw and got my feet off the rudder pedals, but the airplane didn't diverge any as if I had been standing on the rudder pedals. I then shut off the roll damper and got very little motion out of the airplane. It rolled very slightly left and I just held that, and waited a couple of seconds and nothing was changing, so I gave it a little pulse. I think I just started moving it in roll - I may have given it a rudder pulse too, but I didn't get anything out of the airplane comparable to what I had seen on the simulator.

The airplane wasn't any stiffer but the rolling and yawing moments weren't as high. I don't think the stability was that much better. Also, I don't think I got the magnitudes that I did on the simulator, and the roll rate I expected wasn't quite there. One time I let it go hands off, after I had disturbed it, and it did go fairly fast but I think some of this was because it was a little out of trim.

Question: Were you flying the roll rate meter at this time?

P.C.: Well, I did everything. Finally I concluded after it was all over, that I probably didn't do anything to get any good data for this technique of chasing roll rate. I didn't have to use anywhere near the stick motions to get the airplane to stop, or to stay steady wings level, that I did in the simulator; possibly because the ball on the simulator is so nervous. But, other than the tendency for falling off on a wing (out of trim laterally), I could have let go without any problem, kicked the rudder pedal, and let it sit there and wander back and forth.

Question: When you were flying the roll rate meter did it seem to aggravate the airplane?

P.C.: I don't think I even looked at the roll rate meter. Like I said, I wasn't going to. I was going to have to look at the horizon and get it from that.

Question: You were flying bank angle?

P.C.: Yes, and part of the reason is there's just enough sun in the cockpit so that I can't see anything unless I stare right at it. I had a hell of a time finding the rest of the gages in the cockpit and that's one I'm not too familiar with.

I didn't have to use anywhere near as many stick inputs to keep the airplane in a zero roll rate, or wings level condition wherever I happened to be.

I wasn't watching the horizon except for what I could see of the horizon while concentrating on the 3-axis ball. I was doing this all on the ball. It was kind of secondary seeing the horizon.

On the simulator I could get higher angles of sideslip than I was getting in the airplane. In the airplane it just felt loose like you'd expect it to be at that q and that altitude, but I didn't think it was bad at all. I don't think you could do very much with it as far as keeping an attitude, but it wasn't too bad. Maybe I can reflect these comments in the pilot control task ratings.

B. Rate the pilot control task with dampers off.

Speed brakes out: q 1.5 , f 4 , y 3 .

Speed brakes in: q 1.5 , f 3 , y 3 .

P.C.: With speed brakes out I can rate the controllability in pitch 1 1/2, in roll probably because there was a minor disturbance there continually, a little bit out of trim, I'd rate roll about 4 and sideslip 3, and this was between 8° and 10° angle of attack. With the speed brakes in between 2° and 5°a, I'd rate pitch again, 1 1/2 and roll 3 and sideslip 3.

C. Compare the airplane response with the simulator during the dampers off portion of the flight.

P.C.: We've talked about this quite a little bit. Generally the airplane responded a little slower with the dampers off than I expected to see from working on the simulator.

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

P.C.: There wasn't any problem. I was closer to calling my location than I've seen on the traces. When I called over North Base, I wasn't more than a mile, 2 miles at the most, from 2 miles north of North Base. When I called over NASA, I wasn't more than a mile away from NASA.