Checkoff accomplished really without any incident except for this rudder kicking and apparently that has been explained.

B. Was the launch accomplished without incident?

Launch was no problem. There was some roll off to the left and I ended up under the B-52 but rolled back to the launch heading with the engine lit.

1. Cockpit presentation

2. Ground guidance callouts

I started the pullup and over-shot on alpha, went up to about 15° and backed it off to 10°. The rotation was pretty normal except for this difference in theta vernier that we have between the simulator and the airplane. "This was a lot?" Well there is a difference in that in the airplane you only get the last 5° and in the simulator you get 10° in needle motion. So when he said you should be coming up on theta the needle was still all the way up. Then it comes down fast. I was probably a couple seconds late getting the theta and then during the theta portion things began to check out pretty well, time wise; except when I got up to time before pushover, I was a little low on altitude so I probably waited another second and got another 1000 ft. and then pushed over.

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

q 2.8 , f 2.5 , y 2.5 .

In the O g I was a little erratic but stayed pretty close to O g and again the inertial information looked real good compared to the simulator. At 3900 ft/sec, time and everything else seemed to correspond pretty well. "Profile was very good." Yes. I rolled on over to 90° and pulled up to 10° alpha. This looked like it was on time. "Can you give us a rating here on the O g?" O g - 2.8 in pitch and 2 1/2 in roll and yaw.

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

No roll or yaw limit cycles were detected in this area.

D. Describe and rate the pilot control task to perform the wind-up turn (from initial bank maneuver to shutdown):

q 2.8 , f 2.5 , y 2.5 .

I rolled to 90° and pulled up to 10° alpha and got what felt like a little bit of airframe buffet, so I dropped off on the alpha a little bit. When I finally came back up again it seemed normal. So I would rate this area about the same as O g; 2.8, 2 1/2 and 2 1/2.

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

Thrust reduction came at what seemed like right on time and with the ground callout. I started out with speed brakes holding 10° in this area. "Did you come back against the stop or did you just have to estimate?" No, I just came out until I felt that the acceleration was pretty low. Of course you don't have much time, you just get them started out and then you have to get them started back in to get ready for the 17°. "What about the throttle?" Oh, the throttle. I came back slow on that. "To a stop?" Yes, to a stop. Speed brakes started out and I held those off until I got up to about 80 seconds and started them back in and pulled on up to 17°. It was amazingly simple to hold 17°. It seemed like I had just the right pitch rate, hardly any stick force and it was real solid longitudinally there.

F. Comment on the use of pitch rate and/or CSS control function during the turn.

I did not use CSS in here because from what I had seen on the simulator the stick force gradient was much higher than what I would like to have. With a high stick force gradient you can't hold a good alpha. So I didn't use it. Do you want a rating in this 17° a? In this area at 17° a it was the best. I mean probably 2.4 in pitch, in roll 2.5. Then timing and everything went real out of proportion because it just kept burning and Mach number kept going up and H dot wasn't coming off the way it should have. I finally reversed the roll with the engine still burning. I wasn't real sure that it was still burning because there was no longitudinal g but I reversed the roll and about that time I did get a shutdown.

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

q 2.8 , f 2.5 , y 2.5 .

There weren't any unusual transients at shutdown just the normal negative g, or eyeballs out g. And it didn't seem to require any corrective action, I may have inadvertently put a pitch input in here but not to my knowledge. "Did you have the straps tight?" Well as tight as you can have them and still reach everything. You do have slop definitely,

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

There weren't any things other than that pertinent in the boost phase.

In the roll reversal there was no problem, I did come off on the alpha and rolled over to about 60° and started right up on alpha.

B. Discuss directional motions of the airplane during the windup turns.

Somewhere in here things let go. What I really noticed were the lateral-directional motions, that is, the accelerations on the pilot in this area, I didn't sense or see visually any longitudinal oscillations. The motions in roll were ±30 around the bank angle I wanted, and the beta healthy because it was pretty far over on the ball, the needle. "We asked for a rating if there is a difference." Yes, there is a little difference. Pitch I would rate 3 or so because I didn't notice an awful lot going on there. Lateral-directional I would rate probably 6 l/2. "Do you want the P.R. scale?" No, 6 1/2, somewhere in this area, and to me it appeared to be neutrally damped and continued in my mind more cycles than shows here. But it didn't seem like there was much I could do about it. Finally I recognized it as a lateral-directional. Maybe I made the right control input because it stopped. "Did you feel that you were forcing it in any way?" Well initially I think I could have been. I could have been feeding it because - Yes, I know I - Well, this was so strange. We had never seen anything like this on the simulator. "OK, this is important, you had not seen this?" No, we had seen a pure beta oscillation on the simulator at high alphas with damper off, but we had not seen the combined. "Does this compare at all to the damper off simulator practice?" It could have, in that there was a fairly large amplitude and I think during the latter portions of this I came down on alpha which tended to decrease the amplitude, but at the same time I was working so I don't know what finally stopped it. So from this standpoint it would have compared. "It looked neutrally damped on the simulator when you had dampers off?" Right, the beta, yes. And in this case the beta and the lateral mode were neutrally damped. "OK, now these ratings are 3 in pitch, 6 l/2 in roll and yaw both?" Yes. "Do you want to differentiate?" No, at that period things are happening so fast you can't separate the two axes and you finally have to recognize what it is and hope to do something. "Would you want to fly this condition again?" Well, it wasn't too bad, I mean, the thing I was worried about was that it might diverge and it didn't. So to me this is very encouraging. I think I would like to lead into it a little slower next time. Little less amplitude.
 
 

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

From there on in we had gone high because of all the extra burn time and the q dropped down. I finally got H dot going in the right direction and got q back up. I didn't stay at 10° very long because I knew I had a lot of energy to get rid of so I went on up toward 17, and held this through I would guess 60 to 70° of azimuth in one continuous right hand turn to get rid of energy. There wasn't any real problem here. I was occupied looking out the window and so on so I am sure that the alpha wasn't nearly as steady as it was before burnout. But I am sure it was just due to my preoccupation or not being completely intent on holding the alpha in this area steady. "You were more concerned with your terminal guidance?" Right. Energy management.

This is different from any flight I have had.

B. Compare flight profile with simulator performance.

But the flight profile was real good and only got fouled because of the excess burn time. You know it is hard to believe that you have 8 seconds extra burn time.