11 Unwanted Record
for Chuck Yeager
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Yeager and X-1A |
After Chuck Yeager took command of ARPS, a few
months before I graduated, we didn’t see him
except for the brief period we were together on
the graduation trip for our class with him and
Gen. Twig Branch and hospital commander Col.
Stan Bear to Europe. I can tell you this, when
you traveled with Chuck Yeager anywhere, he
received attention. In the subsequent year I
don’t think I ever encountered Chuck, until
after Pete had briefed me on the decision by
headquarters.
In preparation for his AST project, I briefed
him every chance he gave me, went over the
airplane with him and discussed procedures and
the flight profiles. I briefed him on the
specifics of the mission before every flight he
made.
I detailed everything I knew about the airplane
and handling it, especially the differences
between the RCS and aerodynamic control, but
often I got the message that he didn’t need all
of that, he had experience to call upon. He was
not demeaning or curt, just matter of fact and
very confident. Over the years I have seen a lot
of Jeckyl and a little Hyde in Chuck, when he
has greeted me as an old buddy, an unknown or
disdainfully, reasons unknown, or just
circumstance. But during this period our
relationship was very cordial, so much so that
Jackie Cochran, and her powerful husband,
invited Martha and me to a private party
followed by the Wright Memorial Dinner in
Los Angeles.
Jackie adored Chuck and I was being rewarded for
assisting him. The Big Four were all at that
party, including Chief of Staff, General LeMay.
The event was very special to Martha, because
her personal dinner partner was Dr. Edward
Teller, father of the atom bomb. At the party,
Mrs. Lemay introduced me to her husband,
mistakenly by higher rank. When I politely
revised that, she asked why he didn’t promote
me, to which he sourly replied, “If I did I’d
have to pay him!” and promptly walked away,
without an inkling of a smile. After my
previous introduction in his office as one of
the Air Force finalists for the NASA Gemini
program, I had still never seen him smile, which
some attributed to a disease of facial nerves.
I can say, as many have, he was somewhat
unnerving.
As Chuck started flying the zoom missions, I
went over his ground station plots after each
mission with him. Those gave no indications
about techniques or attitude of the airplane,
being limited to a ground plot, but showed climb
angle and ground track, which was all I’d ever
had available. Chucks plots showed that he
never would complete the initial pull up to the
necessary angle of 70 degrees when he was trying
to get maximum zoom and he barely got over
100,000 feet on any mission. The early part of
a climb was especially critical because the
speed was very high and rapidly lost in drag at
low angle versus conversion to altitude at the
proper steep climb angle. If the angle were not
achieved at the outset but was raised to correct
it later the loss of energy was great. The
plots showed he was doing just that, which I
brought to his attention before each flight.
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Don Sorley (Chief Fighter test), Tom
Collins (Test Branch Chief)
& Yeager with AST |
In addition, I tried repeatedly to get him to
sit still long enough to listen to the
difference between handling the AST as an
airplane and the way it would be when he flew
over the top of a max zoom. He was in no way
disparaging me, but he just seemed confident
that he had experienced everything airplanes
could do, and the briefings would end. I just
don’t think he conceived that there was anything
in an airplane that he had not already done and
he was right. He had implicit feel for flight
in an airplane, no doubt, but he wouldn’t
perceive the concept of flight except in the
atmosphere. The AST would soon stop being an
airplane for him. I repeatedly tried to
convince him, and hoped that his repeated
failures to exceed about 100,000 to 105,000 feet
would get his attention, but it never did.
Chuck reminded me of the racecar drivers of long
ago versus today’s drivers. The old ones just
felt it and drove it. The great current drivers
help to establish the design, understand the
technology and why the car handles like it does
and grow with changes. Some of the best are
engineering graduates.
Chuck had the same results on the morning of
December 10th, before his fateful
afternoon flight and we talked about the profile
and problems again. I remember telling him with
certainty that he would never beat the record if
he didn’t hold the 3.5 g’s right up to 70
degrees and damned sure hold the climb angle
until intercepting the 16-degree angle of
attack. In a sense, pitch attitude control
display was very familiar, because it was used
with the RCS controller like an ILS approach
with the stick. But the down side was that the
airplanes RCS responses were nothing like the
response of the control stick. That was not
possible, because it was space dynamics and
control versus flying an airplane.
The AST zoom was 100% on instruments, but I
assumed Chuck was skilled in that, although
instrument training was sparse and crude in his
WW II era training. It was very easy to let off
the stick pressure and reduce the 3.5 g during
pull-up or later allow the climb angle to
decrease and once decreased it could not be
corrected without serious loss of energy and
possible adverse consequences. There was no
second chance on any of the objectives. I
repeated each briefing that it could only be
those mistakes that were costing him altitude.
I emphasized, the airplane was perfectly well
equipped to display the information necessary to
fly the mission and with sufficient margin to
safely do so as long as he did not vary greatly
from the profile, exceeding the limits of the
display. There were many, many things necessary
to a safe and successful flight, distractions,
switches and controls to be attended to,
continually monitoring critical engine and
rocket gages, constantly retarding and finally
shutting down afterburner and then main jet
exactly at their limits for maximum performance
with safety. Some of that might be sacrificed
during the zoom, if necessary, to give critical
attention to the primary task of controlling the
flight path and converting from aerodynamic
controls to the RCS as the atmosphere gave way
to space, but all was important. And then
attending to the most critical of all,
controlling proper attitude throughout the 140
degrees of nose-over, and finally, the reentry
retaining the 16 degree alpha until safely in
aerodynamic descent.
I saw no progress in Chuck’s results. I was
concerned, but I knew that there was nothing
more I could do than repeat and hope he would
finally accept the message, or somehow find it
with his almost magical ability to fly. I don’t
believe he ever bought the concept that the AST
would not control like any airplane he ever flew
or heeded my description of the differences
necessary for controlling it. |