Question: APU or ..........

Thompson: APU, #1 APU went down right at takeoff. No, they were both 38 before takeoff and right after takeoff #1 dropped down to about 3550 and #2 stayed up, but from there on they went down together. Prior to launch it looked like we were really IFR and wasn't until about prime that things started looking good. Well, I could see Hidden Hills but that was all. The drop was real good; I didn't really notice any rolloff at all and got a light right away. Got up to 10° and dropped off to about 8° during the rotation, got back on 10° and the theta came up right about on time. Pushover in the airplane, everything was right on at pushover, the countdown that I was getting from you was about 2 seconds late. During the early part of the zero g everything was still checking out fine and then all of a sudden it seemed like I was going to end up a little high and as it turned out I did, I was a couple thousand feet high but even then I had, I think, on the order of 1300 q so it looked like everything was going to be fine, I came back on the throttle and was watching the Ax gauge, coming back on the throttle and then all of a sudden I felt a little lightening in the seat of my pants and realized that I had dumped it over a little bit and then just waited for the premature burnout. But the velocity was right on I guess when I got the brakes about out, I had just a hair over 5,000 and it was still accelerating just a little bit and then burnout. I came back in on the brakes and, well I'd had a slight negative H dot about that time so I pulled in to about 3 1/2 to 4° of alpha while I was coming in on the brakes and then I started back up so I was gaining altitude and got up to about, I guess, an indicated 80 maximum during the turn and the turn was real comfortable, course because I was at 80 I didn't change heading nearly as fast as I would have at the lower altitude and so I held it on down to 4100 fps and by this time I'd only turned to about 210° and Joe gave me a heading in and it was 215° so there wasn't really any right turn required and I didn't do a right turn. Because I was at 80 and still about Mach 4 I dumped it on over intentionally and picked up a fairly high rate of descent and started out on the speed brakes. When I got to about, oh I guess, about 30° and still moving out on speed brakes I got a tremendous vibration in the rear end so I came back in again to I guess about 25° and held that and then I was coming back up on H dot again and came out again to full speed brakes and got the same vibration, a little less magnitude, and so I came back in again on them and then about that time I quit hearing NASA-l and I called Rushworth to relay for me. It got real garbled, I could hear you real good but they got all garbled up, couldn't hear them at all. I kept coming downhill and I think about the time you called 5 miles out I rolled over and looked and it looked to me like I was at high key then, course as you say there may have been a little delay and I kind of figured that's maybe the reason you had a hard time catching me because you were looking a little farther north then where I actually was, cause it seemed to me that right after they said 5 miles why I rolled over and looked and then started in on my pattern and I came around the pattern, the altimeters looked pretty good, airspeed and everything else looked fine so I wasn't too worried about getting somebody up there. From there on in it was pretty normal and then I finally heard Engle say "you may be a little heavy". Well I'd gone to pressurize after I had passed through 20,000 because I figured I wasn't going to get a call from you anyway, or at least I wouldn't hear you. You said something about landing a little fast so I added 50 knots. On touchdown I'm not sure of the airspeed, the alpha didn't seem very high at all, I kind of flew it into the ground and to insure that we didn't have any excessive gear loads dumped the stick forward on touchdown and this time for sure I felt the tail come off and I had rudder control again for a little while. There is no problem here, you've got so much directional control with the rudder in that area that you're never gonna end up going sideways or anything no matter how violent this push over is and then finally when the main gear came back down again I went into this short landing thing that McKay had asked for and came back in on the stick again and opened the speed brakes and you could really tell the difference in deceleration. It just felt like you threw out a sea anchor or something and I got the flaps coming up somewhere in there but I don't think early enough to make much difference, and during the slide out I held this for, oh I guess, more than half the slide out and let up on it and then tried to turn and I must have been below about 100 knots because I couldn't get any results from the roll maneuver so I came back in again on the pitch axis to again help the deceleration and that was about it.

Question: First vibration?

Thompson: About 4,000 fps and somewhere around 80,000 ft. the first time.

McKay: You only experienced this when you had dive brakes out?

Thompson: Right, and only in excess of about 25 because when I'd get it, I'd come back in a little bit, on the brakes, well you can tell on the record because while I was coming down

Question: ..........

Thompson: Oh, this was still up around 600 indicated or even better maybe.

Question: ..........

Thompson: Yea, I think when I was coming out on the speed brakes the first time I got some of it and then very definitely after that turn when I opened them full and started down I got another real bad vibration out of it and came back in and I went a long way at say about 25° speed brakes and then finally came out on them again and still got it and went back to ..........

Question: Did it diminish as your q went down?

Thompson: Yes.

Question: Did you get any subsonic?

Thompson: No. The platform worked beautifully. It checked against all the old reliable instruments and even indicated zero at landing. Just setting up for the landing then. Somewhere in there, it may have been as far down as Cuddeback.

Question: When did you start picking us up again?

Thompson: I really didn't hear anything until you said I might be a little heavy and land a little fast. Yes, everything came through fine there. You called a couple of times to find out if I was hearing you and before I could say yes, you were talking again. Well the communications were the best I've ever had up until this turn right directly towards NASA and then it really went to pot.