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.

1. Launch, light engine at 75%T. Rotate at 11° a until q = 30°.

2. q = 30°, maintain q = 30°.

3. Pushover to zero g.

4. Increase a to maintain H-dot = 0.

5. Shutdown, maintain H-dot = 0.

6. Yaw damper to "Fixed Gain." Increase a to 10°, maintain a = 10° until H-dot = +600 fps.

7. H-dot = 600 fps - pushover to » 5° a, roll into a 90° left bank, increase a to » 15° and perform several rudder step inputs.

8. Peak altitude - decrease a to » 5°, roll to a 60° right bank, (maintain H-dot » -600 fps), increase a to » 15° and perform several rudder step inputs.

9. Vector to Cuddeback, maintain H-dot » -400 fps.

10. Cuddeback, vector to High Key, speed brakes as required. Yaw Damper "OFF" at pilot's discretion. Perform moderate rudder pulses. Yaw Damper "Adaptive."

11. High Key - check flap and "Squat" circuit breakers in. Engine Master "OFF."

P.C. The prelaunch checkoff was accomplished without any incident. During the checkout I noted quite a bit of activity in the control system, hydraulic system pressures fluctuating, but once the analyzer check was completed the engagement from there on out was positive. There was no dropout in the damper system at any time during the flight.

B. Was the launch accomplished without incident?

P.C. Launch was accomplished without incident. No MH-96 dropout again. I used a little bit of left aileron at launch, and actually rolled off a little bit to the left - not more than 5 or 10 degrees however.

P.C. During the boost phase things were not as planned. The first problem was that I didn't feel the throttle stop for 75% thrust so I went on up and finally stopped at about 90%. Got a call from ground control that I did have 90% and I came back on the throttle to somewhere near 75%, and used this power from there on out.

Shortly after this I checked angle of attack, and couldn't see the instrument because of the reflection of the sunlight on the face plate. I finally had to shield the sun from the face plate and realized I was about 15° angle of attack. I pushed it over to 10° a, and finally got this stabilized out, and started cross checking against the inertial quantities. I realized I had a problem there, since the inertial altitude was still on 45,000 ft., velocity had not yet exceeded Mach 1.0, and rate of climb wasn't apparently doing anything.

At this time I looked back at alpha and I had dropped off to about 5°, but I misread the instrument, I thought it was still on 10°. Finally realizing I was on 5° instead of 10° a, pulled it back up but about this time I reached the theta angle.

About the time I reached the theta, it was also time for the pushover, so I initiated the pushover and I was still trying to make the altimeter work - mentally. During the pushover I came out high resulting from several things - I think I was probably still high on power, and maybe a tenth high on "g" during this pushover but I didn't get any indication that I was going high in the pushover until a call from NASA 1 at 92,000 feet. So from here on I didn't attempt to follow the flight plan and make another pull-up. I was already high enough and I maintained this approximate attitude until we reached the time for shutdown. I shut down on the callout and on my own clock.

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

P.C. During the powered portion of the flight there was no noticeable change in directional control characteristics. However, I'm quite sure I had my feet back off the rudder pedals this time.

C. Rate the piloting task during the speed run.

q 2.1 , f 2 , y 2.5 .

P.C. Theta - I didn't stay there long enough on the climb theta to get a very good evaluation, however, I felt that I could have held it quite well. I had what seemed to be very good longitudinal control capability.

During most of the simulation work I had used the trim for practically the entire mission. As it turned out the control deflection, with trim follow-up, was so smooth and positive and the rates were good so I used this control technique during the actual flight and don't believe I displaced the trim knob at all.

I had no problem with roll at all. It almost felt like roll hold.

Directionally again, there didn't seem to be any problem. I noted that after launch I had turned a couple of degrees to the left so I cranked back onto the heading I should have had, and used this during the powered portion, with no problem maintaining this heading. The only time I deviated at all from this heading was after shutdown when I intentionally kicked the nose over to the right to see where I was, and this showed up on the ground track also.

P.C. The airplane response to the roll control task was very good with yaw damper on "fixed gain." I didn't roll all the way over to 90°, but probably on the order of 60° left, and did a couple of small pulses. Damping was very good. I rolled back over to the right and did a couple of more small pulses, and by this time I was almost on the heading they gave me - in fact I probably hadn't deviated much at all from the course setting because I didn't pull a lot of alpha during these turns.

B. Rate the pilot control task.

60° left bank q 2 , f 2 , y 3 .

60° right bank q 2 , f 2 , y 3 .

P.C. The ratings are probably all the same in both of these banks as what I gave you originally, except for directional - it may drop down to 3 or so.

C. Compare the airplane response with the simulator during the "yaw damper fixed gain" portion of the flight. Rate the pilot control task.

P.C. The airplane comparison with the simulator during the "yaw damper fixed gain" was probably pretty good. It was just about what we had seen on the simulator. The maneuvers were at a higher q but I wasn't surprised at what I got as a result of pulsing the rudder.

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

P.C. I got a call that I was at 60,000 ft and 2.2 Mach so I made a fairly steep turn, and I felt quite a bit of "g" for quite a period of time getting turned around. Also during this period I used speed brakes at my discretion.

On downwind I was still very high - I had on the order of 35,000 feet so continued using speed brakes in various increments during the remainder of the pattern. The control during this period did not seem to be any problem. I felt real comfortable on the side stick.

At the latter portion of the approach I was still very high and got a call to bring the speed brakes in, but I left them out intentionally for another 5 or 10 seconds, and pushed over and picked up almost 400 knots during this period of time to kill off excess energy. I even overshot and S-turned back in and still arrived over the edge of the lake with a good 350 knots. I achieved zero gamma, or zero rate of descent, shortly after I passed over the edge of the lake and I then deployed the flaps and the gear. I think I came up on the speed brakes about this same time and because of all this energy I had I started ballooning - went back up - realized this, and about the time I got to the smoke marker started back down again, and landed some distance beyond the smoke marker.

Immediately on main gear touchdown I started the stick forward and again the nose gear impact didn't seem excessive. It was a definite thump but no problem. On slideout - as soon as all the gear was on the ground I lifted the flaps and came back on the stick, and didn't try to correct for any directional change. During slideout I noticed a slight drift-off to the right but it wasn't enough to bother me, so I let it go and just held back stick almost to stopping.