I thought Pete handled the count down very nicely to the one minute call a whole lot better than I handled the count down to launch. When I finally confirmed it, it was a close situation. My clock was showing two seconds. I did not dwell on the parting but left immediately.

Launch was very mild today. I did not overshoot my alpha, at least to any extent, and I did have a little trouble holding 11° alpha. I think I rotated at 10°. The theta needle appeared to come extremely early. Now this could very well be just a different scaling in the airplane than in the simulator, and possibly after 50 hours of looking at it in the simulator I was surprised how quickly it came down, but I hit theta, as I remember at 26 seconds versus 3O advertised. I remember I hung on to theta pretty well. There were a few excursions, but I can't remember being off theta over about a degree at any time during the boost. I was clinging there pretty handily to it, and I did not get any calls from Pete and I know he was giving them, so I had some radio difficulties about between Mach 2 and Mach 3. I never got a call from Pete that I hit 80,000 which is Mach 3, or to get my pulse and calibrate, which I got on my own. I called him and said I was not reading him and then he called and said he had me going through 110,000, and I read that one quite well. As far as I know, I stayed on theta to 5400' a second indicated, at which time I shut it down as was briefed, in the flight plan.

After landing I noticed that my clock was reading 82.6 or 82.7, so we obviously don't have a handle on this engine yet. It seems to be giving us more thrust and more total impulse every time we press on with it. (?) As far as the thrust misalignment, it was there and I swear that it switched sides somewhere along the line, and I am a little hazy there on which needles we were going which way all this time. I put in some rudder to take out some yaw, due to thrust misalignment, and it went back to zero and I took the rudder out and yaw drifted off the other way. So, I can't tell you what the thrust misalignment was, but I think we will catch that on the camera film. At any rate, I indeed did shut down, and by the way, the precision heading indicator is right on the money all the way. I think we got that about the way we want it.

At shut down my checklist exploded. I don't know how it came out of that alligator clamp, but anyway I had 22 pages of checklist floating around the cockpit with me, and it was a great deal like trying to read Shakespeare sitting under a maple tree in October in a high wind. I only saw one instrument at a time for the remainder of the ballistic portion. So we may have to get a safety latch on that thing. Once again, after landing, that rascal; the alligator was locked tight and it took me 10 to 15 minutes to get it open, so I don't know how these pages came out of the checklist, but there they were and these will be in the camera film which I think we can probably sell to Walt Disney for a great deal.

Over the top I noticed my computer malfunction light was on again and I punched it out. As far as I could tell the inertials were working a11 the way. I saw 310 over the top, and it looks like that was about what you saw down here.

The reentry was very pleasant. I had forgotten what a fine handling aircraft this is. It just exceeds belief. It is a whole lot better than the simulator, and I think the camera film will show, if you can see it on the camera film, that my precision attitude was well within limits all the way down. Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. At 230,000 I pushed computed beta and the needle was off 3 or 4° to the left, so I flew that way essentially all the way over the top. Somehow I got a rudder pulse I should not have, and centered it for a little while and then remembered what I was doing and bounced it back over to where it had been when I went to computed beta. Computed alpha looked good to me all the way, and coming back through, I can't even remember what altitude it was, I went back to alpha beta because I was on my reentry alpha. I think it was about 260, Pete, as I remember. I did my reentry alpha and went back to alpha beta and then at 230, as I remember, I went back to ball nose and beta was not zero at that time, so I booted it around a little bit and finally got it where I wanted it. There was a slight alpha excursion when I did boot the rudder, but nothing too noticeable. My alpha was generally pretty satisfactory all the way down. I. varied, as I remember, from about 22 to 25°. Why it was varying I don't remember; whether I was stirring the cake or whether the airplane was just a little loose. I got the micrometeorite retracted and the g altitude profile looked generally good all the way, I had between 4.5 to 5 g's all the way through the reentry. When I got to zero H dot, went down to 5 alpha and Pete, I believe, called in that I was only ten miles from China Lake so I whopped it on over to 2° alpha to bend it on back down hill. I got a calibrate there and I got my stabilizer movement and turned the tape off. Started down hill and Pete called me, it was Mach 3 and 70 at Cuddeback, which I have always considered what I would like to have, if I had my choice, for Cuddeback energy. So, then when I got squared away on my energy, I did try one tail-loads pulse and I never could get that rascal at 12° alpha. 12° would have been over 5 g's, so I just forgot the whole thing and came on home.

I liked the window shade when I was coming up in high key, so I left it up and coming around the traffic pattern I started flipping switches one way or another, and I was supposed to have on and off. Ended up just very slightly high on final. Used just a little bit of speed brakes and trimmed full nose down on final approach. I put the flaps down and still got a pitch up to where I was using forward stick force to get her down again. I delayed the gear slightly because I thought I was going to land a little short, and I guess Gerry got concerned, but I doubt if I was under 240 or 230 when I pulled the handle, and at least I knew the gear had to come down so I plopped them down then and indeed did land just a little bit long. Beat the stick kicker again, as far a I know, and then came back with full aft stick and got a nice slideout with a slight drift off in heading, maybe 5° to the left eventually. I had a feeling it was a fairly straight slideout, but I don't know exactly where it came to a halt. That's about all I have. Oh, a good question. Stan just asked whether I put the shade down and I did. I got on final approach and just decided that I would like to be able to look out of both windows with the same light level, so I did pull the window shade down. I think I could have landed it the other way, but I did pull it down and land with the window shade down. Yes, I did use my tape g, it was working so I never bothered to go on my mechanical. This is correct, I did pitch down somewhere after burnout to a minus 7 or 8° alpha. This was mostly just not cross checking while I was extending micrometeorite and whatever else I was doing there. The task was slightly complicated indeed with the checklist rattling around there, but the ship handles nicely enough so I did not notice any instabilities, and I finally got it back up ii the vicinity of zero. In fact, I may have gone slightly positive, I don't remember. My alpha control was not commendable after burn out until I finally got everything done I had to do and get squared away, and I think I was over the top because I remember I had pretty good altitude coming back in. The question concerned when I went back into computed alpha to ball nose alpha, and I don't remember the comparisons on that. I was more interested in computed beta at that time. Computed beta was just as much offset when I went back to ball nose as it had been when I went to it. I think there might have been one or two degrees of beta in when I went back to ball nose beta. (?) Yes, that is correct. I did set up my reentry. No, I did not. You don't have to fly alpha on the reentry when you are flying precision attitude. I just held precision attitude until computed alpha got to 22 and then I can't remember when I went back to ball nose alpha how well it compared with computed, but I am sure it was not a gross error or I would have noticed it. The question concerns the theta indicator on this airplane. Are you talking about the precision theta or the - Oh, the theta vernier on Ship #1 and #2 is a small needle on the left side of the eight ball. On ship #3 it is the alpha cross pointer. By going to the theta-beta mode you get theta vernier and beta instead of alpha and beta on your two cross needles. If I had my choice of mechanization, I would prefer the one in Ship #1 and #2, because it gives you information concerning variations from your prescribed theta as well as

theta error, whereas in the cross pointer it is usually centered and you don't really know what the variation is when you are not on the preset theta. I do prefer the mechanization on #1 and #2. On this particular eight ball, there is no provision for separate theta vernier. Let's look at that cockpit film, Glenn, before we decide whether I was off theta or whether it was mis-rigged. The question is the general operation of the Lear panel. I can't remember anything that did not work entirely to .my satisfaction. Inertials, eight ball, and verniers. I was quite pleased with the whole mechanization today. I never looked at the q today, so I don't know how either the dial or the tape q went.

This question was concerning the quality of my radio. I think it is a better radio than the one we had before we changed to the ARC-51. If I had to guess, I would guess that it is NASA l and the combination of up range transmitters that was causing the trouble, because I was reading the chase aircraft and other interested parties quite well.