At the Edge of Space

by Milton O. Thompson

  THE NELLIS AFFAIR

  As the flight program progressed, there was a realization that another launch lake further removed from Edwards was needed to cope with the higher energy flights. On higher altitude flights more ground distance was required, to comfortably accomplish the climbout, the ballistic trajectory, the pullout, and the deceleration into Edwards. Several candidate lakes had been identified, and on May 21, 1962, Joe Vensel asked Neil to fly up to Delamar Lake, to check it out for use on some upcoming high-altitude flights. Neil took off in an F-104 and headed out for Delamar Lake.

  Delamar was located approximately 90 miles north of Las Vegas. It took Neil about a half hour to get there. He immediately began a descent to the lakebed. As he descended, we lost radio contact. We normally monitored proficiency and program support flights on radio in case some kind of a problem developed. During these flights the pilot would try to check in by radio every 15 to 20 minutes to verify that everything was okay. Thirty minutes passed by and Neil did not check in. Della Mae, our secretary, tried to contact him by radio, but got no answer. Another 15 minutes passed and still no call from Neil. By this time, everyone was getting a little nervous. We began calling Neil every few minutes over the next half hour knowing that he should be on the way home due to a low fuel state. Still no luck. Delia Mae called Edwards tower to ask if they had heard from Neil. They had not. Worry turned to fear. We were missing an airplane, but more important, we were missing a pilot.

  X-15 approaches touchdown on lakebed runway after landing gear deployment. Frost on lower fuselage indicates location of residual propellant in tanks during landing descent.

  Number two X-15 on Mud Lake after landing gear failure on Flight 2-31-52. Dryden C-47 aircraft is in the background.

  F-100 chase monitors prelaunch operations during contractor demonstration flight.

  X-15 drops away from the B-52 during a contractor demonstration flight of the number one X-15.

  Climbout after takeoff. Note B-52 gear doors cycling closed. X-15 has wing tip pods installed.

  B-52 with X-15 departing Edwards area en route to launch lake.

  B-52 and X-15 en route to launch point. Note B-52 and X-15 flight history symbols under U.S. Air Force markings. Inclined aircraft symbols with rocked plumes symbols successful powered flights.

  X-15A-2 during launch countdown on maximum-speed flight.

  An aerial salute by the B-52 mothership and two of the F-104 chase aircraft.

  X-15 on Edwards lakebed after landing. Recovery crew is monitoring postlanding shutdown activities.

  X-15 on Cuddeback Lake following emergency landing on Flight 3-29-48. Emergency recovery crew members are deactivating the aircraft’s subsystems.

  Edwards crash and rescue helicopter alongside X-15 after landing on lakebed.

  Recovery crew vehicles, Neil Armstrong, and personnel on lakebed after landing.

  Left side of cockpit. Control stick on left console is manual reaction control system controller.

  Cockpit showing instrument panel and all three control sticks: the reaction control system controller on the left console, the center control stick, and the right-hand sidearm controller for aerodynamic controls.

  Rear view of X-15 showing LR-99 engine nozzle. Upper and lower speed brakes are fully extended. Propellant jettison tubes are located on either side of the engine in the outer portion of the fuselage side fairings.

  Aircraft sitting in the sagebrush following Jack McKay’s emergency landing at Delamar Lake. This event prompted Jack’s statement that the runway on Delamar was “3 miles long with a 500-foot overrun.”

  Aircraft on Rosamond Lake following Scott Crossfield’s emergency landing due to engine fire on Flight 2-3-9. The fuselage broke behind the cockpit.

  Forward fuselage of X-15 number three following in-flight breakup of aircraft on Flight 3-65-97. Accident investigation team is examining wreckage.

  Aircraft sits in sagebrush off the end of the runway on Delamar Lake following emergency landing on Flight 1-63-104.

  X-15 on Cuddeback Lake following the author’s emergency landing on Flight 3-29-48. Emergency recovery crew is deactivating the aircraft. C-130 rescue aircraft is in the background.

  Number one X-15 aircraft slides out after landing on lakebed.

  B-52 with X-15 taxis out for takeoff.

  X-15 separates from B-52 after launch. F-100 chase is in the background.

  Recovery crew personnel and program officials examine aircraft after first flight landing on south lakebed. Aircraft deviated from runway heading during final slideout and came to a stop off the runway.

  Number three X-15 climbs out after launch.

  X-15 contrail during climbout after launch. Photo taken from chase aircraft.

  Close-up of X-15 canopy illustrating small cockpit window size. Note NASA meatball insignia on side of nose section. This insignia usually burned off during flight, requiring frequent replacement.

  Early morning view of preflight activity.

  Front view of damage to lower ventral fin by shock impingement on Flight 2-53-97 to Mach 6.7.

  As we were discussing our next move, the hot line rang ominously. Della Mae was almost afraid to pick up the phone. She finally did, and within seconds, she was smiling. Neil had landed safely at Nellis AFB just north of Las Vegas.

  Several minutes later, Neil called to talk to Joe Walker to brief him on the results of the flight. He indicated that his airplane had sustained some minor damage during the landing and that he needed a ride home. Joe told him we would send an airplane to pick him up.

  We had a two-seat F-104B available and Joe instructed the maintenance people to prepare it for a flight to Las Vegas. Joe checked to see which pilots were available and I happened to be the only one without any other commitment. I got the nod for the flight. I was a little reluctant to take it and told Joe that I had not checked out in the two-seat F-104B, but Joe decided that I should go anyway. I had flown the F-104A, the single-seat model, and Joe said there was no significant difference between the A and the B models. I took his word for it and rushed out to strap in to the airplane.

  The instant I broke ground, I knew that Joe had stretched the truth a bit. There was a big difference in the way this aircraft handled compared to the A models that I had been flying. The airplane was a lot looser. I was all over the sky for a few seconds after takeoff until I could reduce my own gain. I was to learn in the next few months that there could be a significant difference in the handling qualities among each of the early F-104 aircraft. They each had their own peculiarities.

  I managed to get the aircraft headed uphill and off toward Las Vegas and then leveled off at low altitude to burn off fuel for a landing at Nellis. I called Nellis tower as I approached Las Vegas for landing instructions. The air traffic controller gave me clearance to land on runway zero-three. I came straight in for the break and pitched out in a snappy turn to downwind. I dropped the gear and began the approach to landing. I soon realized that I was not going to be able to crank it around tight enough to line up with the runway for a landing, so I initiated a go-around.

  I widened my pattern considerably on the next approach, but I still could not turn tight enough to line up with the runway. I initiated another go-around. I really began to wonder about the turn performance of this airplane compared to the A model. I just could not seem to pull this thing around. I decided to try using landing flaps. Our A model did not have a landing flap position. We were limited to use of takeoff flaps for both takeoff and landing. Later model F-104s had a landing flap configuration with boundary layer control to reduce landing approach speeds. Our F-104B had this flap configuration. I soon found that the handling qualities were very poor in the landing flap configuration. I did, however, manage to get the airplane lined up with the runway. As I passed over the runway threshold, I noted that I was drifting across the runway due to a strong crosswind, but I decided to plunk it on the runway anyway. The strong crosswind, which was not reported by the towe
r, explained the problems I had had in the previous approaches.

  The instant that I touched down, the left main tire blew. I managed to keep the airplane headed down the runway until it slowed down and then, I turned off at the center taxiway and parked the airplane. A fire truck and a base ops vehicle quickly joined me. After shutting the airplane down, I got a ride into base ops. The base operations officer introduced himself as I walked in. He was not very happy. He had to close down the runway to clean up the debris from my blown tire. He informed me that this was the second time that day that he had to shut the runway down. The previous time was after Neil’s landing.

  Neil had landed with his arresting hook down and had engaged the emergency arresting gear at the approach end of the runway. The arresting gear was not designed to be engaged in that manner. The arresting gear consisted of a cable attached to a length of ship’s anchor chain. The chain was hooked up and laid out in an arrangement that, under normal engagements, would fold the chain back on itself as the cable was pulled out. This would result in a relatively smooth increase in drag as the cable pulled the chain along. If the cable is engaged in the wrong direction, the aircraft picks up the drag of all the chain instantaneously. When this happens, something has to give. In Neil’s case, the airplane gave a little and the chain came apart. Links of anchor chain weighing 30 pounds were catapulted through the air for hundreds of feet. Needless to say, Neil’s airplane stopped abruptly. It took 30 minutes to clear the runway and considerably longer to rig an interim arresting gear.

  Previously, when Neil arrived at Delamar, he set up an X-15 type approach to descend down to the lakebed to inspect it. There was no runway marked out on the lakebed, but Neil picked the most likely location for a runway and continued his approach to touchdown. Just prior to touchdown, he extended the landing gear as he typically did during simulated X-15 landings. This time, the landing gear did not fully extend and lock before the aircraft touched down. Neil had apparently misjudged his height and sink rate and extended his gear too late.

  Judging height and rate of sink on these dry lakebeds was not easy. The surface texture on the different lakebeds varied tremendously as did the texture on various parts of the lake. The surface tended to have a crust of clay that cracked as it dried out. On some lakes, the crust was thick and the cracks were large. On other lakes, the crust was thin, and the cracks small. From the air, it was hard to judge whether the cracks were large or small and thus, you had no good reference to judge height. On some lakes, there was no visual texture at all. It was like trying to judge height above glassy smooth water. That is why we marked the lakebed runways with black lines of known width to use as a reference in judging height. Neil apparently touched down in an area with no visible surface texture, and was unable to judge his height accurately.

  The tire tracks on the lakebed told the whole story. On initial touchdown, the distance between the two main gear tires was less than it should have been with the gear fully down and locked. As the aircraft continued to settle, the tire tracks began to merge. The weight of the aircraft was forcing the gear to retract. Neil realized that he was in trouble when he touched down before the landing gear green lights came on. He immediately applied power to abort the landing and get airborne. For what must have seemed like hours, the aircraft continued to settle before it began to rise. In this few seconds of actual time, the aircraft settled far enough to allow the ventral fin and landing gear doors to contact the lakebed. The ventral, which contained the radio antenna, was damaged and the door actuator was broken on one door. This allowed the utility hydraulic fluid to escape, deactivating that system. One other result of the ground contact, was the release of the emergency arresting gear hook.

  Neil managed to get the airplane started uphill before the fuselage struck the lakebed. As Neil struggled into the air, he realized he had damaged the aircraft and was losing hydraulic fluid, so he headed for the nearest airfield, which happened to be Nellis. He attempted to contact Nellis to request landing instructions, but received no response due to the damaged radio antenna. He then entered the traffic pattern and made a pass down the runway wagging his wings to indicate a radio failure. He turned downwind and set up for his landing approach not realizing that his arresting hook was down and as a result, he engaged the arresting gear in an abnormal manner shortly after touchdown.

  The base operations officer calmed down a bit after he got the runway open the second time. He then informed me that they had no F-104 parts at Nellis. Now, both Neil and I were stranded. This time, I had to make the call back to NASA. I knew that Joe Walker was going to be mad as hell, but I had to let him know what had happened. When Joe finally calmed down, he indicated that he would send another aircraft to pick us up. Our C-47 was out of commission so he could not send parts and mechanics to fix my aircraft. That would have to be done at a later date.

  While we were waiting for the next NASA airplane to arrive, Neil and I chatted with the base ops officer trying to cheer him up. As we were talking, another USAF transient pilot joined the conversation and asked what our plans were for our F-104 aircraft. He happened to be the commanding officer of one of the last active F-104 squadrons in the U.S. and he needed spare parts. He believed he had stumbled on a fortune in spare parts in our damaged aircraft. The commanding officer rubbed his hands and danced around like Walter Huston after he and his partner had struck gold in the movie Treasure of Sierra Madre. We informed him, in no uncertain terms, that we intended to repair the airplanes. There would be no abandoned airships for him to claim salvage rights. We really had a hard time getting rid of him.

  The ops officer was finally notified that another NASA aircraft was inbound for a landing. He and Neil and I went outside to watch the aircraft land. It was our T-33. Bill Dana was flying it. Bill made a nice approach, but he landed long and hot. After landing, the aircraft did not appear to decelerate. The airplane went by base ops at what appeared to be 100 knots ground speed. There were only a couple of thousand feet of runway remaining and it did not appear that the aircraft could stop in the remaining distance. The operations officer said something like, “Oh no, not again” and I saw Neil hide his head in his arm. I did not want to watch either, but I was transfixed.

  Somehow, Bill got the airplane stopped before he ran off the end of the runway. The ops officer was a nervous wreck by this time and when Bill walked in later and told him that he would take Neil home and that NASA would send another airplane for me, he broke down. He said, “Please don’t send another NASA airplane.” He promised that he would personally find me transportation back to Edwards. I ended up riding back to Edwards that night in the back end of a USAF C-47 that happened to be passing through Nellis on the way to Los Angeles. I believe that ops officer gave them some free gas to haul me away from Nellis. The base ops officer related the tale of the three hot shot NASA test pilots for years after that. Neil, Bill, and I became infamous. Needless to say I did not go back to Nellis for a long time.

  MY EJECTION

  In December 1962, Joe Walker was scheduled to make an altitude buildup flight in the number three X-15. Bill Dana was originally scheduled to make the weather flight, but he wanted to take some time off and he asked if I would fill in for him. Based on the results of that flight, I still think he had a premonition of what would occur and decided to beg off. At least I accuse him of that.

  The plane I was flying was a unique F-104 with a centerline displacement rack for a weapon such as a large bomb or a big missile. We had borrowed that unique airplane from the USAF to do several unusual tests. In one test program, we were dropping a dummy bomb that contained a Mercury capsule drogue chute system. The bomb simulated the weight of the Mercury capsule. The Mercury program manager wanted to test the deployment and stability of the drogue chute at supersonic speeds at 70,000 feet altitude or greater. We could achieve desired test conditions by accelerating to Mach 1.6 or more at 35,000 feet and then start a gentle climb while still accelerating to 60,000. Above 60,000 fe
et we were trading airspeed for altitude. We usually got to 70,000 feet with more than 1.2 Mach number before dropping the bomb, which was adequate for the test. Quite an interesting flight profile and test.

  With this airplane, we also did the ALSOR program to launch a balloon to altitudes approaching 1,000,000 feet in order to measure air density. We needed to know air density to be able to calculate dynamic or impact pressure on the X-15. The balloon was in the nose of a large rocket that we fired vertically from the aircraft as we pulled up in a loop. We started the loop at Mach 2 at 35,000 feet. We were vertical at 50,000 feet still indicating about 1.5 Mach number, and we went over the top above 60,000 feet. It was quite a maneuver. Every once in a while, we would lose the engine or fall out of the loop, but we managed to get some rockets up to 600,000 feet or more. We never were able to determine whether the balloon came out of the rocket nose cone because we never detected it with radar. We finally gave up on that program, after impacting some errant rockets in some very sensitive areas.

  On our last attempt, we went down to Point Mugu Naval Air Station to use their overwater test area. We had been politely evicted from the Edwards restricted area because we could not keep our rockets from impacting outside the area. The Edwards area was huge—30 miles wide by 50 miles long—but we missed once on the short side and once on the long side and impacted a rocket in Death Valley National Park. When we went to Point Mugu, we did not mention our minor impact error problem. Instead, we stressed the importance of the program and our competence to do the job. The Point Mugu personnel finally agreed to support us by letting us use their overwater range and their tracking facilities. The only proviso they had was that we impact our rocket well away from any of the channel islands.