Note: Only forum leaders may delete posts.
*HTML is ON *UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend
Smilies Legend
[i]One flight that scared me the most was my first flight. It didn't scare me the day I flew it: it scared me 3 or 4 days after I flew it. It was a get-acquainted-with-the-airplane flight, you know – you launched, you flew it at a reduced power setting, and you were coming back over the field and you felt the airplane out, and you pulled and you got different angles of attack. I looked down, it was the first time I'd ever seen Edwards from that high an altitude, and I looked down and it looked like it was right below me and I thought "Well I've never seen anything about negative angle of attack or pushing over or anything, so I've got to get the nose down and get into some higher q-bar" [think of q-bar as thicker air]. I had done some roll maneuvers, you know, left and right, and it just felt like a dream, so I rolled it over and let the nose dish out and dropped down so the nose was pointed down as that was the easiest way to get the nose down. And I really ... didn't think a thing about it and I landed. It was the next day — I was still high — and the next day somebody said, "Hey did you roll that airplane?" and I said "Who me?" and he said "Naw, I didn't think you did." I didn't think anything about it, and two days later Bob Rushworth came to me and said "Come here, I want to talk to you." I didn't ever get to talk to Mr. Bikle [Paul Bikle, the NASA Center Director at Edwards during the X-15 program, sitting in the audience at the celebration]. I was a captain and I never – between me and Mr. Bikle there was a white sheet of cheesecloth and a bunch of beads that held it down – and I never got to cross through there to speak to Mr. Bikle. But Rushworth [sitting just a few seats away from Engle at the celebration] would go in and talk to Mr. Bikle and Rushworth would talk to me. It was kind of an intermediary. And ... we got into a room and he said "Did you roll the X-15?" I honestly had to think about it and said "Yeah." He said, "We don't do that on this airplane." And I said "Okay, I didn't realize that," and I forget what else you said to me. Bob was a major and I was a – a- (pause) everything he said was okay with me. I don't know if you ever knew about this or not Mr. Bikle...[/i]
Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts
Copyright 1999-2024 collectSPACE. All rights reserved.