NASA SP-2013-4552 

e

Christian 

MoNOGRAPHs IN AEROSPACE 

edite

Christian G
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

The spoken word III: recollections of Dryden history: the shuttle years I edited by Christian 

p.cm. 

"NASA SP-2011-4552." 

1. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center--History. 2. Astronautics--Research--California--

(Kern County)--History. 3. Oral history. 4. Aerospace engineers--United States--Interviews. 

-United States--Interviews. I. Peebles, Curtis. 

TL568.N23S66 2007 

629.1072 '4--dc22 

11 
Ill 
IV 
v 
X-68: Former FAA designation for the NASA Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC 

VI 
had a shuttle simulation that was used for the early stu

both the Approach and Landing Test and the orbital fl

landing phase. Joe Engle came here because we had w

with him on the X-15 and actually built the data man

that he performed during the re-entry. You gotta rem

that Joe was the only individual that ever flew the sh

hands-on all the way from de-orbit bum through lan

that flight plan he did data maneuvers by kicking th

and the ailerons and pitch axis to get the data, mane

that we later extracted to compare with the wind-tu

dictions. He was the only guy to hand-fly it using 

:::;;;;;. .. ~:~~=: gauges that told him when to do bank reversals an

1 angle of attack to fly all the way down through landing. He develop

on our simulator, then went to Houston. We had developed very close relation

with the engineers at Houston, who really weren't airplane testers but began to 

real fast, and we worked together with all the team members: Dryden, Johnson 

Center (JSC) and the Flight Test Center. 

The Flight Test Center was interested because they were essentially hired by 

now called Space Command, but it was Space Division down in El Segundo [

because the Department of Defense (DoD) was going to have heavy payloads 

shuttle and so they hired us to [do] an independent evaluation of the space shu
process. The Flight Test Center runway--the Edwards Air Force Base runway-it's the 

15,000-foot runway. 

Noffsinger: Describe your role in regard to the space shuttle: do you have anything 

you can tell me more about, like testing, about Enterprise, construction of the orbiters, 

anything like that, or are you more focused on the X-15? 

Armstrong: Early in the program, when the orbiter was in Palmdale getting prepared 

for its first flight, we all had things we worried about. What if things happened? About 

that time, down in Mississippi, where they were testing the rocket engines, the turbo 

pump was having problems, and having failures of the turbo pump could be catastrophic in the orbiter. 1 

Over in Palmdale they made their first effort of putting the tiles on to protect the 

aluminum from the heating that we're gonna get on re-entry, and some of those tiles, 

whether they put them on in day time or at night, the next morning some of those tiles 

were on the hangar floor, so that was real scary. We could lose some tiles while they 

'Modern liquid rocket motors rely on turbo pumps to force fuel and oxidizer to a combustion chamber 

because, among other things, compressed gas is not powerful enough to supply the mixture to match 

combustion rates. Moreover, gas pressure drops during the burn, reducing the flow to the combustion 

chamber while a turbo pump can maintain constant pressure. The first X-1 s did not have turbo pumps and 

that was a limiting factor in the aircraft's performance; subsequent generations of the series were equipped 

with turbo pumps to feed the engine chambers. 

2 
Armstrong: That's easy: when the first shuttle landed out here and did such a 

Joe Engle was flying chase and to hear his voice coming in on final, talking to 

Young and "Crip," Robert Crippen in the airplane telling him that they were r

glideslope, coming in for a landing, and then have John Young do his "Young 

as I call it; as he got out of the airplane, walked around it looking up at the co

of the vehicle, he was just so elated. It was such a magnificent flying machine 

that time. 

Noffsinger: Which orbiter was that? 

Armstrong: It was Columbia that made the first flight. 

Noffsinger: Nothing that was scaring you, keeping you up at night? 

Armstrong: Yes, all of those kinds of things worried me at night about the the

protection system. My job was the re-entry, so the boost worried me because 

had shown a habit of blowing up. One of the things we're glad never happene

abort while you're going into orbit and have to do that return to the landing s

you tum around and use your engine to accelerate back to the landing site and 

Fortunately, they never had to use that, but it was programmed in to guidance 

that. I called that RTLS, Return To Launch Site abort. Some of our team mem

3 
ences. The Flight Test Center has published 

about 10 reports on the first four flights 

about the re-entry, in excruciating detail, of 

all systems, the flying characteristics, all of 

that was well documented by a small bunch 

of guys--probably less than a dozen that the 

Flight Test Center had working the engineering side of the house. It was done under 

the leadership of Bob Hoey, who also went 

through the X-15 and lifting body program. 

He was the leader of that group at that time. 

the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Center maint enance offic ials estimate 

that over 60,000 gallons of fuel were 

used during the operations. 

The flights occurred on Wednesday, 

Thursday , Friday and Saturday of last 

week and carried over through Monday 

of this week. 

4 
sister had just gotten married and come back from Florida and said 'Oh, I did

It was really humid and hot.' And, of course, I knew about Cleveland, where 

Research Center is located [formerly Lewis Research Center]. I was from Yo

and didn 't want to go to Cleveland. And finally it was California, and so Sally 

said, "Wow, that's got to be wild." We had never been past Illinois at the time

we of said, "Well, let's go out to California." So I sent my resume. 

Somehow I ended up on old Route 66, in Baker, CA, and it was in early Jun

my wife Sally, it was at nine o'clock at night, and I remember calling her up s

"You won't believe this. It's so brutally hot." I'm looking at this map and it te

I'm going into the Great Mojave Desert. I said: "What the hell have I been th

last day or two?" I think I ended up in maybe Mojave and spent the night. An

I got up the next day it was like, holy crap--am I on the moon? I said, "Jack K

sent me to the moon. What the hell am I doing here? I've made the moon." 

[For perhaps half-a-year Barron worked on a project called Avocet, a classi

gram at the time. All the flights took place at the Naval Weapons Center, Chin

on Fridays and weekends to minimize unwanted scrutiny.Jl 

2Peter W Merlin "The Evolution of Remotely Piloted Vehicles," in NASA :S Contributions to Ae

Vol 2: Flight Environment, Operations, Flight Test and Research, ed. by Dr. Richard P. Hall lion

(Washington, D.C. NASA, 2010) 520-526. 

5 
on 47s. That is his forte, Jeff 

Moultrie. His number one 

man, Triple, we call him 

Triple Nickel, Jack retired 

a few months ago. We're 

trying to bring him back as a 

contractor. That would help 

us out through the last of the 

program for shuttle delivery 

and stuff. 

I have Bill Reike who is 

currently employed with 

Delta part-time and as a 

NASA pilot. Now, all the 

guys still fly NASA T-38s 

and stay current on the 

smaller airplanes. Bill is a 

American 747 which visited the Flight Research Center several 

years ago. will be purchased by NASA for use in the Space 

Shuttle program . 

747 TO BE USED FOR ORBITOR TRANSPORT 

NASA plans to use a Boeing 

747 to transport the Space 

Shuttle Orbiter and related Shuttie hardware cross-country. 

The 747 w ill also be used in the 

planned approach and landing 

tests of the reusable Orbiter. The 

tests are scheduled to be held at 

the Flight Research Center. 

This new concept replaces 

earlier p lans to install six 

airbreathing engines on the 

delta-w inged Orbiter for flight 

testing and for ferry flights from 

the W est Coast to the Kennedy 

Space Center launch site in 

Florida. 

A used 747-100 t ype aircraft 

will be acquired from American 

Airlines. Cost of the aircraft is 

estimated at $16 million. A team 

from the Flight Research Center 

will assist in the acceptance of 

the aircraft. 

great wide-bodier. He knows 767s. He jumped in the 47 just like it was nothing. Two or 

three trips and he was ready to go, no problem whatsoever. 

Our other pilots out here: Bill Brockett has been around forever. Bill is a NASA 

pilot. He flies everything. The other pilot we have, Frank Batteas, with NASA, Frank 

obviously flies everything, F -18s, you name it. He's had some seat time in it. They are 

backup pilots. I' ve been on a couple missions with Bill. Frank hasn't flown on a ferry 

mission with us as yet. 

12 
board they want to fly a ferry 

Absolutely! 

Gelzer: What's involved in keeping the airplanes airworthy? 

Brewer: We've adapted a program written specifically for the 747s. We fly pub

which means we are in a registered airplane, but as a NASA asset we don't ne

have to conform to all the FAA standards. For example, ifl have an inspection 

due based on regular maintenance schedules, I'll look at the paperwork and go

only flown twice this past year on this airplane, so I don't see the need for us t

the airplane apart to do all this due to lack of wear and tear." That being the co

denominator for most of the maintenance, they've let me run with a lot of the 

gestions as far as what needs or doesn't need to be done, and I present them ba

NASA, which decides in writing: okay we'll postpone this for 18 months. The

their maintenance on commercial schedule, which leaves us way out of the pic

don't even come close to commercial standards as far as flying hours and land

Gelzer: Is the aircraft an experimental designation, given the modification to i

4NASA self-certfies its aircraft. It sometimes applies an "experimental" placard to FAA certified 

such as the SCA, following modification. 

13 
back on board, we took offusually 20 or 30 minutes ahead of the 

47; they took off first 

this time and used about 11 ,999' of a 12,000' runway. It was a very heavy day that day, 

almost didn't get off the ground. Triple was flying, Jeff Moultrie was in the right seat 

and they were giggling about it all the way back to the Cape. 

We left there that same trip at about 11:00 a.m. or 12 o'clock their time and as we 

entered Florida airspace we hit thunderstorms, very bad thunderstorms. We were of 

course in the DC-9 Pathfinder cutting a path on the weather, telling the 747 where to go 

like we always do. Our weather radar went out and we didn't know where they were. 

We talked to them, they'd give us a location but that didn 't mean anything to anybody 

on board the Pathfinder. We strapped in and soon we're flying like we were in the back 

of an F -1 8: we were punching clouds and looking for a space. Meanwhile, the 7 4 7 just 

lifted up, went left, and flew all the way around everything. We landed at the Cape, and 

as soon as I stepped off the airplane they were touching down right behind us. I'd never 

seen that happen before. It was a fun trip, it was a real fun trip. The weather is pretty 

unpredictable sometimes back there. 

Gelzer: Once you're there and the shuttle has been unloaded, do you fly back on the 

SCA? 

Brewer: Yes. The past few years, due to legalities or whatever, the administration has 

felt that they didn't need to have anything except necessary personnel on board in case 

there is an incident. They don 't want to Jose the crews and the assets so they won't 

14 
Brewer: I do. On a ferry flight the only part of the airplane that's used for carr

anything is the forward cargo pit. When the shuttle sits on top it makes the air

tail heavy so I have 1,700 pounds permanently bolted to the forward cabin on 

deck in front of the first-class seats that we've left on board: that weight neve

the airplane. 

When we ferry, I put 7,000 pounds of pea gravel on the very forward side o

ward cargo pit, and behind that I'll carry a couple tires, a jack to jack the airp

to change the tire (which we've had to do on occasion), and an extra brake as

I have a couple of big bins - you've seen the luggage containers they use? I ca

of those full of parts. All kinds of parts, anything breaks on the wing, actuator

we carry a lot of parts. 

Gelzer: Have you had to use these parts? 

Brewer: Yes. 

Gelzer: During the flight? 

Brewer: We 've never had an issue where we've had an in-flight emergency, w

something has failed in flight. We 've never had a condition arise of any major 

in any ferry mission that I know of, even before I got here. We keep them, I w

15 
out there, at minimum every couple weeks, and power up the airplanes and move flight 

control around, exercise everything as much as I can. It seems to help. 

Gelzer: The flight you mentioned that had the two tons of garbage that they brought 

back, that was the summer during which the orbiter was here a little longer than normal. If I remember, that was when there was a rainstorm. 

Brewer: Oh, it rained good that trip. Yes it did! 

Gelzer: After it stopped raining, for the two days after that the sun came back out and 

heated the place up to well over 100 degrees, it started to smell like a garbage truck. 

Brewer: Yeah, it was rather ripe. A lot of people don 't realize that when the shuttle 

lands it's had eight people on board for two weeks, it's a little ripe inside, too. It's not 

real pleasant to smell. It doesn't smell like a bunch of daisies in a flowerpot when you 

open the door. Of course, it doesn't help having the lavatory sit right there by the front 

door as you step in. So, with all the trash on board they thought they sealed everything 

up; well, the humidity just intensified the problem. It went aromatic if you will. It was 

quite interesting. 

We had it here at Edwards. They opened it up and said "oh yeah they brought some 

extra things back." Usually procedure says when the United Space Alliance folks get 

in there, and I've been on board a couple times: they don't touch anything that comes 

16 
lar basis. Once a month the pilots try to come up and stay current. They fly ma

at least one time prior to every mission to make sure everybody is current. So 

up and fly for two or three hours and do, depending on how many people are o

I've seen as many as 12 touch-and-go's and six full-stop landings and takeoffs

on tires. We break a lot of tires. 

But as old as the airplanes are now, I'll have an air pump go bad or a hydrau

sure switch quit working. I'll get sticky gauges. Gauges might stick, or an N1 

might stick up in the flight deck and we'll just be changing gauges out.5 Some

have a fuel quantity gauge that's not reading right. I think primarily based on j

of use. 

Gelzer: Do Dryden pilots fly it once a month if the Kennedy people aren't goi

there? 

Brewer: No, no. That's an interesting topic and I don't have all the information

I will say is that Houston thinks -- says -- the airplanes belong to them. Dryde

they belong to it because they're out here, but the airplanes don't get flown un

Moultrie, the chief pilot from Houston, comes out and flies the airplane. Dryd

do not fly the airplane without Houston's approval and there will be Houston p

on board when it happens. So, I tend to believe what I hear. People are funny. 

5N I refers to the speed of the first spool on the turbofan engine, indicating engine RPM. 

17 
6TBO: Time Before Overhaul. 

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between the standard long-range and the short-range model. 

The fuselages are the same, the wingspans are the same; 911 has a little bit 

gear on it, almost a -200 model gear versus a -100, which was a Boeing thing 

they bought the airplanes. 911 came from Japan Air Lines and 905 came from 

can Airlines. So, it depended on what the customer wanted when they bought 

airplane. For the most part they are identical. 

Gelzer: And the orbiters, despite their own characteristics, don't make the airp

any different, do they? 

Brewer: Nope, just a little heavier. I had the pleasure of speaking with Gordon 

ton many times over the years and Gordon did the first free-flight test with En

He told me that prior to that, in the wind tunnels, they had the '47 model and 

shuttle on top and found that without the tail cone on it, in flight for an extend

it would actually take the tail off. The turbulence coming off of the orbiter wo

the tail off. So the tail cone smoothed everything out. They put the vertical sta

out at the end ofthe elevators and everything worked just great, but they foun

with too much input it would tend to porpoise. So they limited the [elevator] 

about 50% and no matter how much control input they don't get more than 50

tion in flight and it smoothed everything out. They say it flies heavy but it flie

and when I was on it I couldn't tell a difference. We just took a little longer to 

and a little slower coming in but it flies really well. 

19 
soags dsappeaed? 

o you ow aytg about ts? 

Brewer: I have researched it. I have had requests from several people to put the mission 

markings back on them before we retire. A lot of people would like to see that. We lost 

W

o

20

p

L

m

a

to 

E
X-45, down in building 4833. Northrops airplane is a little bit bigger, still has 

gear, my personal opinion: they could put it on there and we could carry it any

we wanted to. Little more weight, the flying characteristics would be practical

cal. Northrop doesn't want to truck it and put it on a boat get it back to Pax Ri

[Naval Air Station Patuxent River] but they won't finish their flight-test progra

probably another 12 months, from what I understand, so it's on hold. 

I received some calls from a couple of our local engineers here in the Loads 

Someone I knew from CEV [Crew Exploration Vehicle] project asked me out 

blue, "How many Gs can your airplane pull?" I said, "Excuse me?" And he sa

many Gs can you pull?" I said, "Probably Ill Oth less than it takes to break a w

don't know for sure." So I contacted a friend up in Seattle, a performance engi

747s. Our airplane will do 2 Y2 Gs. So they were tickled. "Oh that's great! Tha

How much can it carry, Rick?" I said: "How much do you want to carry?" He 

8In mid 2012 Dryden reapplied mission markings to 905 in a condensed form, in much the same 

they were on the NB-52B 008. 911 had, by that time, been retired from service. 

9In the 1990s Dryden and the Air Force participated in a series of flight tests with Kelly Space & 

Technology to explore the possibility of launching rockets not from the ground, but from 20,000 

horizontally, after being towed aloft behind an aircraft. Doing so would eliminate the disproppo

amount of energy consumed in the first phase of lift-off and boost, thereby making access to spa

affordable. The tests used a Convair F-1 06 Dart towed behind a C-141 Starlifter. See Tom Tuck

Eclipse Project, (NASA: Washington, D.C., 2000), Monographs In Aerospace History# 23. 

23 
24 
sensitive, so I was aware of many of the requirements, whether it be working 

sified [things], dealing with physical security or some of the things we talk ab

enforcement area, and one of my favorite has always been more the technical 

the house, in electronics and some of the new capabilities for using television 

the workload on people who were the human element. I came to work specific

ALT. Dryden was entirely different. Things had already started to change befo

on board. 

Gelzer: Had the MDD been built? 

Joe D: Yes. One of the key players was Stanley "Ski" Markey. Ski was instrum

in developing the overland route from Avenue E to the base, developing that s

unimproved roadway-- it had always been a little dirt path to the duck pond b

Street East and then intersects with the entrance of base. 

Rockwell was given the overall responsibility of developing the plans and p

for moving the orbiters from Palmdale to Dryden. Headquarters was really in 

of that move but they delegated it to JSC. JSC, in turn, let us do most of the N

coordination because we knew all the players, knowing some of the officials a

Force made the task easy; we talked the same language. But Rockwell did all 

10The "strongback" was transferred to the California Science Center to enable it to move Endea

the Los Angeles airport to its museum in 2012, where the shuttle went on permanent display. 

25 
that roadway, which is actually almost 3rd Street East as we would know it. It finally 

reaches the roadway, actually two separate lanes in either direction, where the guards 

are at the West Gate, makes a right-hand tum onto the roadway leading into the base, 

comes through the gate, goes all the way down to the first intersection where the flashEnterprise Flies Alone On First Free Flight · The first free flight of the 

Space Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise 

is slated for takeoff today from 

the Dryden Flight Research Cen-

. ter at 8 a.m. PDT. Astronauts 

Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton 

will be at the controls of the 

Orbiter for the approximately 

five minute long free flight. 

Flight crew for the 7 4 7 Shuttle 

Carrier Aircraft (SCA) will ·be 

Fitz Fulton, Tom McMurtry, Vic 

Horton and Skip Guidry. 

This initial solo flight follows a series of unmanned and 

manned captive test flights con· 

ducted at Dryden which began 

in mid-February. The Orbiter 

was carried aloft for a series of 

five " inert" flights (Orbiter systems inoperative) before astronauts Haise and Fullerton and 

fellow AL T crew members Joe 

Engle and Richard Truly flew 

subsequent captive flights. 

The captive flights verified 

the aerodynamic and handling 

capabilities of the 7 4 7 I Orbiter 

combination as well as Orbiter 

systems and crew procedures. 

26 

· Th~ fll.ght path of the Orbiter and 7 4 7 follows a racetrack 

pattern with separation occu ring 

when the vehicles are about 13 

ki lometers (8 miles) to the right 

and f lying parallel to the landing 

runway. From the separation 

point, the Orbiter will fly a Ushaped ground track to t he runway. 

Touchdown airspeed is 

about 2 00 mph KEAS and 

elapsed time from separation 

to touchdown is about five 

minutes, 1 0 seconds. 

The next Shuttle flight is 

tentatively scheduled for August 

30. 
enthusiastic, clapping, smiling, hoorahs, waving a flag. We didn

t worry about 

ist activity; we were aware that we certainly didn 't want anything to happen an

looking for people running across the route, because we had those -- people wo

cross the road in front of us. We'd be coming up the street and they wanted to 

front, people wanted to get pictures. It was a different era. 

Gelzer: How long did it take? 

Joe D: We started at 4:30 in the morning. We wound up here at around 3:30 to 

in the afternoon; it was a long, long day. I think from start to finish, the first tim

almost 13 hours. That got better. We reduced it quite a bit. 

Gelzer: The next one was Columbia? 

Joe D: The next one was Columbia. Again, the most important thing from my p

view: I had two responsibilities during that time. The first one was security; se

was the transportation officer so I worked very closely with JSC transportation 

about vehicle requirements. 

The other interesting thing about the overland route: I remember seeing tiles 

the shuttle. 

Gelzer: And that's just the overland trip? 

27 
Joe D: That was sort of the way things had gone at JSC and KSC during the whole program so it's one of those logical follow-ons. Pilots have unique ways of doing things. 

Gelzer: Here's a question then that you may or may not have any insight into. Neither 

of the first two men who flew the shuttle flew any of the Approach and Landing flights. 

Joe D: Except for Engle and Gordo. 

Gelzer: The first two to actually go in STS-1 had never flown in an ALT. Why were 

they not picked to fly at least one of the Approach and Landing Tests so that they had 

some first-hand experience? 

Joe D: I can't answer that. I really can't. Alii can tell you is that I was always puzzled 

why Fred never flew in the program, because the other three did. Gordo, Dick Truly, 

and Joe Engle fl ew into space. 11 

Gelzer: Then you had the PIO? 

11Haise resigned from NASA in June 1979, two years before the shuttle flew, becoming the vice-president 

of space programs for the Grumman Aerospace Corporation. 

28 
had been a guest of Rockwell and we

d told him those were alfalfa fields. 

The liftoff was nominal, nothing to speak of. Separation went well-- I could 

a radio. It was nominal. You're focusing, trying to focus on two jobs. You wan

spectator but at the same time you're caught up in your job, security in my cas

then, as the vehicle approaches it looks like it's a little hot. Then l see the first 

"That ain't in the program." The second tum actually occurs almost directly in 

the VIP area, and you're saying, "Oh, no," your mind is already preparing for t

and you're hearing some of the conversations you 're not supposed to hear. I do

what the exact words were but I always remember, "Get off the stick, get off th

and then the vehicle levels out and goes down the runway. The Prince looks ar

you know he knows something is wrong. Nobody knows the answer at that poi

then we start talking about pilot-induced oscillation. 

Gelzer: Who was turning the Enterprise around for another flight? KSC contra

personnel? 

Joe D: KSC. KSC had their own convoy commander, starting with ALT, even t

operational phase. They did all that. Dryden was really in a support role. We w

ering information from the Air Force, passing information on, providing things 

needed. We did have equipment. 

We learned a lot from ALT in terms of how to do things such as crowd contro

badging. Roger Bamicki came up with buttons for badges at one point. One of 

29 
Joe D: The space develops its own environment. 

Gelzer: I was interested in your memories of pulling the orbiter off the lake bed early on 

and the wheels getting mired. 

Joe D: Stuck twice. 

Gelzer: Stuck twice? 

Joe D: Yeah, I'm partly to blame for one and partly take credit for one. The landing 

took place early in the program out on lakebed runway 23. We had that transition to 

make from the lake bed to the Dryden ramp, and one of the early decisions was that we 

would come directly back to the MOD. 

One of the things we had learned was the orbiter was getting heavier and heavier, 

going from 180,000 to well over 220,000 some-odd thousand [pounds]. So we are on 

the way, towing back. We had picked a route we felt very comfortable with. As we got 

a couple hundred feet away from the ramp, the vehicle started to plow. What do I mean 

by plowing? As you move more and more into what [are] sand-like conditions it starts 

going a little deeper, a little deeper, it gets harder to pull. It got to the point where the 

alarm went off. In the tow vehicle there are a couple safety devices that tell you when 

you're exceeding the amount it can pull; a flag pops up and a hom that goes off, and 

actually there are some mounts inside of it, if I remember they're rubber mounts that 

32 
the mailroom, all of logistics, transportation, reproduction, and a new process 

had called word processing along with anything else that was assigned. So I h

chunk and again a lot of us did it on the fly. 

Gelzer: John [McKay] remembers being pulled off the F-104s and being sent 

work on shuttle every time that came up and then went back to his day job. 

Joe D: That was the norm for everybody. John eventually did some control ro

later on; the midnight shift. But again, we were in sort of a support role. Peop

us but they really didn't want us. 

Gelzer: Because the people making the call here were JSC and KSC; they we

Dryden? 

Joe D: Yeah, and the rules we had. I had a tough time with them because we h

to go through the transition of [being under control of] Ames and the great tim

12From early in the era of flight test programs at Edwards the Air Force relied on a standard 6lb 

lifted to 6 feet, then dropped onto the lakebed, to determine if the lakebed was dry enough to su

aircraft operations. Investigators measured the diameter of the dimple left by the ball in the lak

surface: larger than a certain size and the surface was still too soft for operations, smaller and it 

for flight. Winter rains regularly flooded portions of the dry lake, sometimes even the entire lak

since its more-than-44-square-mile surface represented the ideal landing area for an experimen

its accessibility was essential for unconventional operations. 

33 
the same." My answer was, "You left out one important thing; we are already here. I 

can keep my TDY costs down and you can't. 1 mean, even to the point where you may 

not even be able to respond as quickly as we can." STS-3 proved that. 

Gelzer: Talk about STS-3: they had an option for [landing] here or KSC and it was 

raining at KSC and water on the lakebed here, right? 

Joe D: We had been concerned about water on the lakebed, but from very early on 

everyone felt comfortable and we would send pictures of the lakebed back to JSC 

showing the water dispersal. Always felt comfortable with landings on the lakebeds, 

the runways on the lake bed really dry out very quickly and most of it is not affected 

by water except runway 23. One of the principal water-gathering areas is the approach 

end of runway 15 and there's a stream that sort of runs in the far end of runway 23. So 

we were more concerned about the tow-back then the actual landing. There certainly 

was concern about the rain, ifthere was dampness on the lakebed what that would do. 

You might see some of this, mud so to speak-- they don't call it mud, surface material - pushed up into the orbiter because we always say that even on a nominal landing 

there is some degradation of tile caused by the lakebed. There's no getting around that 

- minor but it does occur. 

So we had rain in the forecast, we actually did see a little rain prior to the scheduled 

landing and we had a meeting at roughly 4:30 -5 in the morning; a big weather briefing. Everyone was there to talk about landing. The discussion was: do we want to go to 

34 
railroad car, when it connects to another railroad car, has a little ramp that fold

but there's a difference of about three feet or more in some cases between the 

ing gear and the end of a railcar, to hook it up to the next one in that dock. We 

looked at it and said, "We've got a one-inch piece of steel, solid steel that can 

We got that steel piece down to that railhead and put it so it was the interface b

the ramp and the railcar so that you could drive over it. We soon found out tha

not know how to transfer the big the unit onto that railcar. It overlapped each e

the car by about an inch and a half: tires were actually over the edge of the rai

13The reference here is to the Mate-DeMate-Device (MDD). The one built at Dryden was desig

it could be dismantled, shipped someplace, and reassembled for use, then dismantled again and 

to Dryden where it would once again be assembled. The designers contemplated moving the M

place to place either by a number of Lockheed C-5s or by rail, depending on where the device h

The MDD was, in fact, never disassembled after construction, and over time it was actually ren

immovable with additional fixtures and welding. 

14For comparison, NASA estimated that " it would take about 19 C- 17 /C-5 aircraft sorties, a sig

Navy sealift operation, and 450 NASA and contractor personnel to complete [a] turnaround" if 

had to make a Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) and the MDD moved to support it. NASA Fa

Space Shuttle Transoceanic Abort Landing Sites, [n.d.] 

15These refer to purge and cooling units attached by umbilical hoses to the orbiter's back end af

that provide cooling to the orbiter's electronics and experiments once the vehicle is powered do

assure positive pressure is maintained in the cargo bay since the latter item is not hermetically s

35 
spent over four hours but could not get that 534 to line up. We tried backing it up and 

everything else. 

With the decision to go to White Sands everyone geared up. We had people flying in 

from Florida but we weren't prepared, literally; Dave Hoffman wasn't here, and he was 

the author of this plan, the expert, so it fell upon Dryden. Dryden took the enormous 

task of getting all that stuff onto the railcars. I was in charge of that operation. I divided 

the team up into two parts, Art Nash, who I sent down to the back of the shipping and 

receiving at the Air Force area, where he handled all of the large steel items going into 

the gondola cars, and I was at the ramp railhead. 

Gelzer: It's the one and only time that they'd ever shipped the equipment. 

Joe D: They had forty railcars to do this with, in two waves. After we got the first few 

cars of stuff out to the railhead everyone departed -- I mean, they were gone. I got 

nervous like anyone would; we'd never put the shipment on and there was only me and 

a few USA [United Space Alliance] -- it might have been Rockwell at the time, probably Rockwell -- guys to do this. Everybody else was going home or getting ready to go 

home. They were running to get all their stuff to get ready to go and we were sitting out 

here with the responsibility to do all this, and the weather was turning bad. 

Nobody was here from KSC. The first few cars were easy -- we had some difficulty 

36 
even bad some snow in the middle ofthe night. One oftbose that you just did 

thing you could -- you had to -- to get it ready to go. 

Dave came about midnight, finally got here, and everything was almost all 

He paid me one of the greatest compliments I ever received. I looked at the op

and said, "Dave, it's yours; you're the boss, it's yours, here it is, I've done eve

can for you." He looked at me and said, "You've done such a great job, I need 

White Sands," and left. 

After less than four or five railcars I threw the plan out. It wasn't making se

reason? On paper it was the greatest thing in the world, but stuff wasn't arrivi

schedule. I had all of this stuff I ined up that was being shipped to me by the K

ple and I was supposed to put it on according to this railroad plan and the rail

match [the planned loads]. You develop an eye, "Give me a 40-foot railcar," I

line stuff up and I'd point to where I wanted this, this, that, and put it on. As a 

we had over 1 0 cars that, when we finished, were empty, and that wasn't acco

the plan. But that enabled us to send a whole bunch of stuff that we weren't su

to send, which proved to be a godsend. We sent a whole bunch of supplies, ve

and other equipment from Dryden that wasn't called for in the plan. We work

40 hours straight getting the first cars ready and the train left on time. Everyb

gone at this point and we had the second group to wind up so Dave was at the 

end. We got some rest finally after 40 hours. 

Ironically, I got a call the next day saying, "Hey, your picture's in the paper

made the front page of the Los Angeles Times." I did? Only problem is, the ph

37 
gave me a leg up on getting selected for the early Enterprise flights. 

Wright: When did you learn, or how did you learn that you were going to be selected to 

be part of those test flights? 

Fullerton: I should remember it as a stellar moment. It's probably George [W. S.] Abbey calling me up and saying, "Come over," and said, "How would you like to?" Dumb 

question; of course I'd like to. Generally that's how you found out about selections all 

through my time there. George Abbey was the head of the Flight Operations Directorate 

and the one who probably mostly decided and also told you. 

Wright: And how did you train for these tests? What was your training before you started actually working with the Enterprise? Could you tell us about those experiences? 

Fullerton: Well, ifl'd never flown the Enterprise, doing the training was challenging 

and intriguing in its own right. People say, "How do you train?" thinking, well, you go 

to a school and somebody tells you how to do it. It's not that at all. Somebody's got to 

write the checklist, so you end up writing the checklist, working with each subsystems 

person and trying to come up with a pre-launch checklist for the approach and landing 

tests. So you're doing the work, that the learning comes from doing jobs that needed to 

be done. We worried about doing this dead-stick landing, so we had to train for that. I 

built a gadget to work on the T-38s that would allow you with any given weight to set 

the power with the speed brakes down to simulate what the data said the Orbiter would 

fly it at, so that we could go fly the pattern we intended to fly in T-38s, making steep 

descents, flaring, and touching down, and we did some of that right out here in the pat44 
was set up for future astronauts as well? 

Fullerton: Oh, yes. Since we were the first ones through the STA, you know, th

procedures got developed, how we did it, based on us flying and trying. Still, y

there have been changes over the years, but they're still doing that regularly. N

erybody, every crew that flies, flies a lot of STA flights in much the same way. 

I thought it'd be really interesting- in fact, I kind of have set that up, too- 

see, when I last flew it was 1985. So it's been sixteen years now, seventeen ye

I last make an orbiter landing, and I'd like to just go get in the STA and grab t

and try a landing, you know, simulating the interplanetary guy that's been on a 

year voyage to Pluto or somewhere and comes back and has got to land it. I ha

feeling I could do it. Of course, it's not like I've not flown a lot of airplanes si

you know, I'm going to try that sometime when they're out here. 

Wright: Oh, good. I'd like to hear the results of that. That sounds really intere

You were going through all these processes and procedures and training and c

this as you were doing it, but at some point you learned of the day that actual 

going to be held. Also, the amount of testing was cut, reduced back to only fiv

tests when there was supposed to be many. Tell me about the special landing t

us about how that affected you, when you thought there might be more testing

that a good news that there was going to be less, or did you feel like that was a 

decision? 

45 
a flaw, really, in the design of the flight control software that led the pilot into a pilotinduced oscillation, and we bounced around and shocked a lot of people, probably 

more than- it didn't look that bad from inside the cockpit. But, again, that's why you 

do tests. You find out. 

Then the debate was, should we fix that and test it some more. It was a strong feeling, like, that was a pretty exciting landing, which shouldn't be that exciting, or do we 

cut it off, fix it by testing and simulators, both airborne and on the ground. Do we know 

enough to press on? And it turned out that was the decision. You've got to cut the ALT 

off so we can go on the Columbia and get into orbit. 

Wright: Could you share with us a few more details about what your roles were during those tests? I'm sure Fred Haise was the commander, and you were the pilot, for 

instance, landing or any of the other aspects. What exactly were you doing, and what 

were you having to be responsible for during those testing times? 

Fullerton: Okay. The commander in the left seat primarily had the job of flying the airplane, to take the stick and fly it. There was a stick both places, so on each of the three 

flights, I got some of the flying time. But the prime role ofthe co-pilot was to take action when any of the subsystems had problems, monitor the systems. The pilot is busy 

watching where he's going and how he's doing on the profile, and checking the navigation displays and keeping the airplane on the profile we wanted to fly. 

On the very first flight, the instant we pushed the button to blow the bolts and hop 

46 
reshuffle of things. No, that

s not right. It was Fred Haise and I were on secon

think. Golly, I'd have to research this. 

For a while I was going to fly with Fred. Then Fred decided he wasn't going 

it out. He went off to management world with Grumman. So then I ended with 

for a little while, and then finally with Jack [R.] Lousma, which was great. Jac

great guy, and he'd flown on Skylab. He's not a test pilot, but very capable guy 

great guy to work with, and so I couldn't have done better to have a partner to 

Wright: During that time period, were you training now in the simulators that 

helped process originally? 

Fullerton: Training, again, more engineering job than training job, because the

more details of the cockpit. The cockpit we had in ALT was just only the switc

applied. All the other systems now had to be put in. So I was back into that ag

reviews. 

There were lots of changes, and then the software became a huge-the bigg

stumbling block. The software that in these central computers not only control 

you fly and control the flight path, but almost every other subsystem. And so g

software wrung out and simulators writing the checklists, writing especially th

function procedures, what do you do if this breaks, if this breaks, if this light c

It's a book this thick of fine print, and amazingly, it's wrong most-you can ge

ofthe smartest people and you think we're going to get this right the first time

47 
and crash and burn, and we 

didn't know- well, is that 

because the simulator doesn't 

cope with this nor not? And 

the instructors didn't know 

because they were just as new 

at it as we were. And so, we, 

"Well, I hope it's a simulator 

problem." And so we'd write 

it and document it, and they'd 

take it off, and somebody 

would research it, and sometimes you'd get the answer, 

and sometimes you' just kind 

of go by the board because 

you're just too busy. 

And so there's always an 

element in anything this complex, and that's the thing. It's 

really a complex vehicle. It 

really is. Even now I'm sure 

there's some question marks 

G

in 

an 

14

su

Fu

pa

N

an

tr

to 

o

us

in 

w

N

44
knew we were going to do that. We built the switches recessed so you could s

it. But that's a whole different thing. 

Then, of course, the launch phase is like nothing, but your landing test is th

of entry. So there was a familiarity there from ALT that certainly helped. But 

days prior to entry was just a whole different world. 

Wright: And while you were in orbit, one of the tasks that you had was to test 

mote Manipulator System [RMS]. Did you have a lot of training in that as we

Fullerton: Yes, that was built by Spar Corporation, or whatever, Canadian firm

was Canada's contribution, was the manipulator arm. So I went a couple of tim

Toronto to work with them on and to basically train, see how it worked. And t

had a full-size mockup at Houston with a 1 G-capable arm driven by hydraulic

had an electronic version ofthe arm, looking at screens in the windows and th

tor. 

So there were a lot of tools to get the hang of working the arm. So that was 

cool. I was prime on the STS-3. They had taken it out of the locks and waved 

a little on STS-2. Three, we actually grabbed something and picked it up and 

around and put it back 

Later, on [STS] 51-F, that same package we picked up and let go off of it an

went back and grabbed it. But Tony [Anthony W.] England did most of the ar

on 51-F. 

49 
to pump them up.

 

The other thing about the motion sickness, we're not sure there's a direct correlation 

to flying airplanes and sickness. I know if you go up and do a lot of aerobatics day after 

day, you get to be much more tolerant of 

it. So Jack and I, we scheduled T-38 every 

chance we got in the last couple of weeks 

before we went down there, and I flew 

literally hundreds of aileron rolls. I know 

that's what would do it to me. If I did roll 

after roll after roll, I could make myself 

sick, and I did that, and I got to the point 

where it took hundreds of them to make 

me sick. But I did that figuring I don't 

know if this helps, but I had the opportunity, I'll do it, and the results were pretty 

much the same on both flights. 

For the first day or so, I didn't ever 

throw up or anything. I never got disoriented, but I felt kind of fifty-fifty, you 

know. You're pretty happy to just-a malaise- you're happy to float around and 

relax rather than keep charging. And into 

An 

ph

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th

ob

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fly 

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re
Fullerton: Yes. Well, they were ready for us because we knew we were going t

This [Edwards AFB] was underwater out here. That's why they gave up on tha

Wright: Can you tell us about the landing? Was there anything different or any 

cedures that you were working on with the landing that came in for STS-3? An

different that youFullerton: Well, where we planned to go, the main thing was this really fierce j

stream, fairly low altitude at 20,000 feet. The winds were over 100 knots out o

west, which is unusually high. John [W.] Young, I think, had flown some appro

the STA ahead of time and decided if we made our normal left tum around to t

bound landing, coming from the west, we'd never make it back because of this 

blowing us away. So they changed to a single right turn, which put me on the i

the turn, not Jack. It was clearly the right thing to do. So that was a wrinkle. 

I could see the turn. He was asking me, "How's it look? How's it look?" bec

was flying blind over there. I was saying, "Oh, it looks good. Keep it coming." 

was different. But we had lots of help figuring that out ahead of time. 

The entry was pretty cool because it was an early morning landing, meaning 

the main part of the reentry is at night, so we could see this glow from the ioni

really bright out there. In fact, we had lost a couple oftiles on launch. We knew 

because we'd looked out and bad seen the boles in front of the windshield, and 

51 
here slogging around in this gravity field, not nearly as much fun as floating. But the 

relief is that you got this huge team of people that are helping you through, and you're 

back, and it was a success, and you didn't screw up, do something to mess it up. That's 

a combination of good feelings, I remember, right out here on runway 23 on 51-F. 

G

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Fedorko: What's involved in supporting shuttle landings at Dryden? 

Grimshaw: We provide landing aid systems support, including the Microwave 

ning Beam-Landing System (MSBLS), which is the microwave frequency ver

an instrument landing system that aircraft typically use for approach and landin

MSBLS is used to align the orbiter with the runway as it begins its final approa

Once aligned with the runway, the Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) l

ing system provides the commander and pilot with a visual indication ofthe or

position in relation to the threshold of the runway during final approach. As the 

nears the runway the ball-bar lighting system provides the commander and pilo

a final visual indication used to guide the orbiter to its touch down on the runw

lowing landing we provide recovery and towing of the orbiter back to Dryden, 

is then followed by shuttle post-landing processing using the Mate-Demate-De

(MDD) which is used to lift the orbiter for servicing and ultimately raises it so 

mated on top of the 747 in preparation for ferry to Kennedy Space Center (KS

shuttle hangar and other facilities house the various vehicles and ground suppo

ment that are required for shuttle operations. 

Fedorko: Could you take me through a day in your job? What kind of responsi

do you have? 

17Ridley Mission Control Center, named for Jack Linwood Ridley, pilot and project engineer on th

53 
Grimshaw: Yes. It can be difficult at times. Any time you are working with people no 

matter whether they're located at Dryden or across the country there are always challenges. There are different personalities and responsibilities. Sometimes the lines of 

responsibility blur: who is responsible for what. We continually work through these issues as they arise. Basically, we are a support site so we really look to the folks at KSC 

and JSC for guidance to make sure we understand their needs so we can better meet 

them. 

Fedorko: Could you tell me about your early career when you were at the Air Force 

mission control preparing for STS-1? 

Grimshaw: At the Air Force mission control center I worked in the ground station 

area where we received the radio data signals from aircraft undergoing flight tests. 

We processed those signals using computers and electronic equipment so that the data 

could be stripped out or reduced and then sent to control rooms to be displayed on 

strip charts. Flight test engineers could monitor and analyze the data being displayed, 

which included any of a number of parameters such as airspeed, altitude, flutter, engine 

performance, things of that nature. We provided this same support around the clock for 

STS-1. 

Fedorko: Could you tell me about some ofthe people you worked with at Dryden? 

Does anyone stand out in your mind? 

54 
Grimshaw: The original 

intention was for Dryden to 

be a secondary landing site. 

Interesting that you would ask 

that question. A while back I 

was looking through some old 

inter-center agreements, between us and the other centers 

and I actually found the original document, dated September 30, 1974, for the design 

t ha t w as f irst suggest ed by 

Dryden employees J o hn M cTigue 

and S ki M arkey . Arrival t ime 

should be m id-afternoon. 

Co lum bia will be taken directly 

to t he M ate- Dem ate Device w here 

it will be prepared for mating to 

the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. 

Mating will occur that night in 

preparation for an early morning 

local flight on March 9. Purpose of 

the sho rt flight is to det ermine the 

will be pi loted in part 

pilots, Fitz Fulto n 

M cMu rtr y with Vi c 

engineer, is scheduled 

Paso, San A ntonio, an

prior to a M arch 10 p .

KSC. 

In addition to th e 

747 Operatio ns Eng i

Anderson and Ed Brow

will be on board the 747

and construction of the Approach and Landing Test and secondary landing site 

at Dryden. That really kind of tells the story as far as what the original purpose 

us -- being a secondary landing site. 

For the first four missions, the research and development flight tests of the sh

we were designated as the primary landing site because of Rogers Dry Lake be

provides a considerable safety margin should the orbiter need more room to la

kind of made sense from that stand-point to use Dryden. 18 

18The main runway at Edwards Air Force Base is roughly 15,000 feet long - long for any runw

this pales in comparison to the lakebed runways at Edwards, the longest of which is over 7 m

length. 

55 
hire on at Dryden.19 I know it was that way with me. You also have closer-knit families 

based on project teams and certainly that was true with the shuttle. It was important 

that you not only knew what your job was but what other people's jobs were, what to 

look out for when you were out supporting a landing or recovery or in the turnaround 

I post-flight processing phase, just for safety purposes, just to make sure that if something didn't look right, if something wasn't going well, that people were looking out for 

people. So you do become a family when you work day in and day out with the folks 

that are supporting. 

Fedorko: Did people use to joke around at all? 

Grimshaw: Yes, there is always joking around and fun. We have an environment where 

people do things like that. It really indicates that you have a really strong healthy environment; that people are happy, they feel free to interact jokingly with others. So yes, 

there has been some joking that has gone on through the years. 

Fedorko: Do you have any examples? 

Grimshaw: 1 believe it was STS-61A, Challenger's last landing out at Edwards, that 

19Dryden has always been one of the smaller NASA centers in terms of staff, hovering at about 1250 

people total at the time of this writing. It was smaller still at the time Grimshaw speaks of. 

56 
lake bed. 

Grimshaw: Yeah, that's kind of part of the joke, because we did have a system 

measured lakebed hardness and that test had been performed and evidently mi

particular area of the lakebed or got some faulty results from the test equipmen

Fedorko: Would you say that's your most memorable landing of the orbiter of 

recall any other ones that were particularly interesting? 

Grimshaw: Having supported so many it's kind of hard to pick one. One that w

memorable was the Return To Flight from Challenger. STS-26 landed on lake

runway 33, ifl remember correctly, and Vice-President Bush came out. As we 

the convoy across the lakebed to stage for landing we had to stop before cross

runway 22 to allow Air Force Two to land. After Discovery landed and we roll

the orbiter we immediately saw secret service agents at the command vehicle. 

them opened the door, came in and stood in front of the door inside of our veh

we waited for the crew to come out of the orbiter. Then a limousine with Vice

Bush and Governor Deukmejian came up and they got out and greeted the cre

20There is a compass rose, nearly a mile in diameter, at the edge of Rogers Dry Lake. The rose i

next to Dryden (research indicates the rose appeared sometime in the spring of 1953) with the c

direction West (270 degrees) ironically pointing directly at the shuttle area. 

57 
our eyes a little bit while waiting for launch. As the shuttle launched and cleared the 

pad, we were cheering, and then a little over a minute after launch came the call "go at 

throttle up" then we saw something we had not seen before with these strange clouds 

of exhaust and we stared at the screen, not sure what we were seeing. We knew something was wrong and it got really quiet; nobody was saying a word. For me, I just kept 

waiting. I thought, "Well, obviously something has exploded, hopefully we will see 

an orbiter coming back around and landing at Kennedy." I don't 

know how many minutes we were there and 

we just kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and it never 

happened. Then the realization 

set in that it wasn't going to happen. Later, of course, we found 

··- ·" out that, we had actually lost the 

IL.oillli•~..:...--~ orbiter and crew. 

It was one of those events that you S iA . . . This mo . . -

Landing Test . drfred Gu/fstre ~ ~ never forget. The rest of that day of _the hun:''~s r_o familiarize~;:: II is being flown b . - d b bl <: <: d . actron COntrols rbrter Prior to f rnselves With the h y Approach •nd an pro a y !Of a teW ays It was ::e the Side for::"g:e seen Under~::t~ligh s this urna~:ling Qualifies like walking around in a fog. You aircr:;ssenger ride q::a ~ators on DFRc·s e Wings _ Thes:· a Th~ Side 

. rty StUdies t etstar Which re Similar had to come to work, you still had a 

•"!!!lllllllllllll~opu~t~a~si;d•;w;••;d;rn~:,~~:~·"~~:~·d~t'~:J job to do and you did it, but you did 

it with that cloud overhanging. It was 

58 
At Kennedy, especially with people working on the orbiter and related system

it was process and paperwork ad infinitum. To give you an example, when a te

cian performs a task on an orbiter they are provided a very detailed step-by-ste

order. If a step could not be completed they had to stop work, contact the appro

engineering authority, let them know what the problem with that step was and 

further instructions and sometimes extensive reviews before continuing the ass

task. 

At Dryden, our processes aren't that defined and we really rely on the expert

our technicians and engineers to make many of these judgment calls. Not to sa

it's looser here; it's just different. They are working on a multi-billion dollar sp

that flies beyond Earth's atmosphere and are more intricate. We work on aircra

within the atmosphere and do not to need to have as stringent of requirements. 

Fedorko: Would you say there is an increased efficiency at Dryden because of 

style? 

Grimshaw: Increased efficiency ... yes, there is. We were talking about some o

other day. People from KSC and JSC like to come out here and do a lot of the

because it is much easier to get things done versus trying to do it back at Johns

back at Kennedy. 

Also, when you become a part of a culture you have a tendency to carry that 

practices with you no matter where you go or what you do. If you're working 

59 
the facilities, vehicles, ground support equipment, and various systems. We have been 

working very hard on preparations with the program back at JSC as well as the folks 

at Kennedy. We are estimating that it is going to take about two years to disposition 

everything. It's kind of a bittersweet time because the ultimate plan is that probably 

~ United States_ 

J

S

C

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fo

la

a

2
Dryden. All the stuff goes away, including the buildings. 

The MDD is scheduled to be tom down sometime in 2012, since it won't be 

after the last shuttle mission ends and there are costs associated with keeping i

date and ready to support. And, if you really don't need it anymore, at some po

to go away. Thirty-five years ago the shuttle hangar, the Mate-Demate-Device 

shuttle logistics warehouse were under construction, and over the next five yea

will be demolished and no longer exist. It's bittersweet. [Current plans are to r

hangar and some of the other facilities for use by other programs at Dryden.] 

Fedorko: How do you feel now that the space shuttle program is coming to an 

Grimshaw: Once again it's bittersweet. The shuttle is the most amazing machi

has ever been invented and flown by man, and for the last 30 years it has just b

amazing to watch it and look at all the things that have been accomplished, cu

with building a space station. Sometime after this mission [STS-135] it's really 

to hit that that's it, there really is no more. It's a difficult time. On the other ha

ing worked in aerospace for many years you see programs and aircraft come a

When I was first entering my career it was an exciting time with B-1 bombe

F-16s and F-15s and now you see those aircraft being phased out and F-22s an

coming in. There is a life cycle and at times I have a tendency to focus on it an

was great to be a part of that. I think we like to associate ourselves with somet

is bigger than us and the space shuttle is going to be one of those things for tho

61 
generations of people view the shuttle program. 

G

e

E

fo

m

S

fl

P

M
Vietnam. I came back off of the last cruise and decommissioned both the squa

the ship and flew the F-8s over to Davis Monthan and that's when the F-14s c

I only had about six months left so I went over to North Island [CA] and spen

six months over there in a VS squadron, sub-chasers. 

Gelzer: The MSBLS? 

McKay: The MSBLS is a landing device for the shuttle. It is almost like a TA

[Tactical Air Navigation system] where it brings the orbiter in. I really don't k

about it but they had money for it. I don't know if they still use the MSBLS si

there but I imagine they do. It's a landing aid for the shuttle. That's how they 

of their money together to hire people. 

Gelzer: You hired in here and began working as an aircraft mechanic? 

McKay: Right! 

Gelzer: And that's how you finished your career, not as a mechanic but workin

aircraft operations? 

McKay: I never moved out of Code 0 [Flight Operations]. 

Gelzer: Tell me about your experiences with the shuttle. Lets start, because yo

63 
hours offlight testing. Crew on the 

Gelzer: Where were you during the 5th and final landing? Jetstar for these flights was Don 

Mallick and Ray Young. If the 

systems check out, the Jetstar will 

be returning to KSC in June for 

commissioning tests. 

McKay: That one was for the runway. I was down by 

building 1600, outside.21 

Gelzer: You could see the whole thing? 

McKay: Oh yeah! We didn't miss anything. Those days 

you could move around a little bit; you didn't have quite 

The Jetstar performed similar 

checkout and commissioning tests 

on the MSBLS system installed on 

lakebed runway 17 here in 1976, 

prior to the Shuttle' s Approach 

and Landing Test (ALT) program. 

the security you do today. I think by that time they had brought some ort rop guys m 

from Johnson to take care of some of the T-38s because it had become overwhelming. 

They had so many of them out here we didn 't have enough people to take care of it. 

Gelzer: 1600 was the big Air Force hangar, so you were down there to watch the approach and landing. Any memories of what people were saying around you after they 

watched Enterprise kind of bobble as it came in? 

McKay: We were in a vehicle, there was a few of us mechanics, and we watched it. We 

knew something was wrong. That's all it was to me, it was a glider and an airplane. I 

21Building [hangar] 1600 is a one of the largest aircraft hangars at Edwards, positioned on the taxiway 

connecting Dryden to the base's main runway. 

64 
done. There were a lot of hands-on things because there was just so much to d

time nothing was set in stone; the program was just so young here. We hadn't 

too many space missions in the past. 

I would go down and get the welder from the Air Force when they were hav

problem with something out on the lakebed. I also started running what they c

lakebed tester. It was a unit that almost looked like anI-beam trailer that had t

wheels of the shuttle right in the middle. We would load that with 11 Olbs. of p

which would simulate the weight of an orbiter on landing. I would take a T-30

which you would tow a B-52 with, or maybe even the 747, and we would go u

down the lake bed just on the outside of the landing zone and check for the dep

depression and make sure the lakebed was good to accept the shuttle. We did t

runway 1 7, 23 and 15 on the lake bed. 22 It was things kind of like that. 

Gelzer: It was just 11 Olbs or 11 0,000? 

McKay: I'm sorry, it was 110,000 lbs. There was a lot of support stuff. After t

2 came. By then we had started what they were going to call Abort Once Arou

(AOA) for Dryden. So we got a bunch of mechanics together, a couple avionic

I remember correctly, and we were going to be trained to take care of the orbit

had an Abort Once Around; in case they couldn't get the payload bay doors op

22An orbiter often weighed in excess of200,000lbs; halving that weight and placing it on one se

was enough to indicate the lakebed's suitability for a landing. 

65 
y p, 

tion for a while because it took awhile to jack the orbiter up on the axle jacks, get the 

tires off, and remove the brakes. It was about a four to five hour ordeal anyway. 

Gelzer: And at the time Edwards had only one runway and they weren't using the 

lakebed for anything else they wanted. 

McKay: Yeah, that was it. The lakebed was seldom used in the later years. 

Gelzer: What else? 

McKay: By this time we were getting ready for the night landings. We pulled everything out of the bag on that. We had an aircraft carrier ball bar set up on runway 22. It 

was something you would find at any naval base when they do Field Carrier Landing 

Practices (FCLPs), when they do simulated carrier landings and they'll fly against a 

ball bar. We 'd brought that up. We were looking at different types of lights for how we 

were going to light the runway. We did that for quite awhile. I believe that it was STS-8 

that Richard "Dick" Truly, who was the commander, landed at night at Edwards. 

Gelzer: Could he see the ball bar or was that just something you guys toyed with and 

then dismissed? 

McKay: We toyed with it then we dismissed it. I don't know why that happened. The 

68 
main thing were the xenon lights. Those were 8 million-candle power lights. W

doing a lot of flights on runway 17 out on the lakebed; this would be at 3 o'clo

morning in the summer. They would bring the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STAs

fly against it. Bill Dana, one of our Dryden pilots, flew against them a lot in the 

and did the approaches against the different things that we would put out there

We would have to have the xenon lights up at 25 ft. on runway 22 because it 

shaped somewhat like a banana. In order to be able to get over that, you know 

15,000 ft. long, at 7,500 ft. it starts moving back down a little bit. That was a lo

Gelzer: The xenon lights would actually light the entire runway? 

McKay: Yes, but we had several of them and we had both on each side. We we

this for STS 5 or 6, it was other things that we were doing in between these lau

can't remember which one it was, maybe STS-7, that it was going to be an ear

mg. 

I had the xenon lights--we only had two trucks of them, one on each side oft

proach end of runway 22--and I was on the far side checking them out. I get do

the truck and we are probably an hour from landing--I believe they had already 

69 
T

C

R

a

a

c

o

o

N
I never did measure it. I came off of the north side of 23 and I started heading 

the shuttle area--that's right across Compass Rose in front of Dryden. There, I 

time. I barely got that out of there. We were probably 4" deep in that area; they 

quently closed Compass Rose for a long time because of that. So I get back to 

and I told Charlie Baker and Joe D. that we shouldn't be towing the orbiter thr

there; anywhere around there we are asking for problems, big problems. I thin

program didn't like the idea of having to tow the orbiter all the way back to ta

Delta, and then back down in front of all the hangars to Dryden. I think there w

of people that had a lot of different thoughts on that. To me, that was the safes

do it. It was a tried and true journey and it if took another 20 minutes, half an 

hour - big deal. 

Johnson got the Air Force to do a hardness test, and I think they did a hardne

right out in front of the taxiway. They used this electronic stuff and this kind o

back to my dad's twinY He worked here as an engineer, and part of his work w

landing gear on the X -15, structural loads and that kind of stuff. What they wo

back then is fly the Gooney Bird [C-47] to these different lakebeds that were u

emergency landing sites for the X-15. They would take a 6lb steel ball and dro

6', measure the indentation, and do the math. That's how they figured out if th

was dry enough to support a landing. Well, the Air Force had all this electronic 

there doing that, and I was told: "no, it's fine." 

27Jim McKay, who was an aerospace engineeer and also worked at Dryden. 

73 
shuttle was starting to rollback. I still went down for about two or three launches in between that. I was on that bird from '90 to '96. Don't even think I was at work or around 

when they departed and had to come back. I know Pete Seidl was concerned. That's a 

national asset. They even had guards around the shuttle carrier aircraft for a long time. 

Gelzer: They use to keep them apart? 

McKay: Yes, for that reason. We had guards on it down here for a long time at night. 

Gelzer: Guards inside of an Air Force base? 

McKay: Yes, right. You never know who is going to belly crawl across that lakebed 

with a peashooter. 

Gelzer: Ed Saltzman use to ride his bike across that.28 

McKay: r know. I was just so fortunate to work on the shuttle program. It was almost 

like the old X-1 days or the old X-15 days; it was new, it hadn't been done, as reusable 

launch vehicle and landing. I had it down, from the de-orbit burn to landing was 59 

28Edwin J. Saltzman came to the center as an engineer in 1954. He lived in North Edwards and rode to 

work on a bicycle, a commute of several miles each way, a ride made shorter if he cut across a portion of 

Rogers Dry Lake, something no longer possible. 

74 
hit the fan after that. 

Gelzer: What happened here as a result or immediately after? 

McKay: It wasn't like lock down. 29 We had our NASA guys here and whatever 

were in charge of for recovery that morning, they collected the paperwork and 

vehicle or whatever they were doing to bed and went back to work here at thei

job. 

Gelzer: You would have been working Return To Flight after Challenger becau

was in the late '80s and you would have been there. 

McKay: Yeah, we did. Return To Flight, that was interesting. The shuttle progr

decided everybody had to be re-educated on how things went, how things work

were going to have to have an official card to say we were checked out on the 

the towing, all of this, whereas before, we didn't have any of that. Dryden didn

those rules. In fact, we used our own stamps on the shuttle paperwork. We had 

29Typically, when an accident occurs during a significant flight at NASA, the control room doors 

after the accident, preventing anyone from entering or leaving for a period of time. Investigators 

interviews to record events so nothing is lost because of time, and nothing brought into the contr

allowed out for a determined period. 

75 
Huntsville Research Institute, 

the Research Park and the 

Alabama Space and Rocket Cen-

Dryden had other jobs here, so whenever the shuttle 

came in, work kind of stopped. 

......... We went back to the Cape. Charlie Baker, myself, and a bunch of the guys, to get trained. It just so 

happened that that was when the Discovery left the 

Orbiter Processing Facility and went to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Unbeknownst 

to us, that was about the biggest deal in the world because that means it's leaving the 

garage and it's getting ready to go and fly. It was going to get stacked. Well, that was 

party time then. We could not get a hold of anybody to have the paperwork completed 

so we could get trained; everybody was out of contact, doing other stuff. So we went 

to the Cape for a whole week and had a vacation at Cocoa Beach. Now, we went to 

work everyday, but we didn't do much. We tried to do a few things but it just never 

worked. 

Gelzer: Did you get certification? 

McKay: No, we never did. Then, during the Return To Flight, the shuttle was going 

to come in here for that flight and they gave us a quality assurance person that had to 

witness the door opening and all that. That was all brand new. The young lady that they 

assigned to that task had never seen a hatch open before. There is not enough room in 

White Room anyway; there is too much stuff going on. You have a false floor that you 

have to put over the opening. You start with the floors up until you get the hatch down 

76 
currently et 

modified KC-13 5 · 

maybe they should have given u

body that was familiar with the 

operation. 

Gelzer: After you picked up on the HARV aircraft, did you still do anything w

landings?30 

McKay: A couple, three times and then I kind of faded away. It was just a natu

migration I think. We got too busy on the HARV, and then after that I had the 

starting in '96 and I couldn't combine those two. 

It was somewhat disappointing. By that time we had lost some slots here, gu

retired and there just weren't enough people to go around to support the Dryde

that Abort Once Around. So that had gone away as well. 

They still had the George Grimshaws' that were down there with the NASA 

they had to be there so if they had any problems with radios or anything they w

there. 

Gelzer: We're just not staffed the way we once were. Is what you are saying? 

30High Alpha Research Vehicle, an F -18 with thrust vectoring paddles at the exhaust nozzles, an

strakes. 

77 
747. Describe what you were thinking before, during and after the separation? 

McMurtry: The first time the shuttle Enterprise separated from the 747 was the most 

exciting part of the program because, even though a lot of studies and analysis had been 

done and Fitzhugh "Fitz" Fulton and I, as the pilots in the 747, had done a lot of simulation work, there were still questions about whether or not it going to actually happen 

as we expected from those simulations and analysis. We had practiced the descents and 

we'd gone right up to the point where the shuttle would separate, so this was the final 

determination on how it was going to work. There was a very positive, loud thump 

when the shuttle separated. There was always the question of whether the shuttle was 

going to slide back and hit the tail of the 747 or not; we couldn't see tail but we could, 

after a few seconds, tell it didn't hit us and then the chase called "clear!" so we knew 

that the shuttle had separated high enough that it could then fly away from the 747. We 

could make a tum and come on back and land at Edwards. Honestly, that was probably 

the most exciting moment in the Approach and Landing Test, to feel and be there when 

the shuttle separated from the 747. 

Noffsinger: If you could delve a little deeper, you are sitting there, you got your hands 

on the yoke and your hearing all this communication going through your ears, knowing 

what's about to happen, you've been training up to this point, you're just about to give 

it the big test: what are your thoughts? What are you hearing? If you could paint me a 

mental picture of the process of just before you guys make the decision that this is the 

real deal, to it actually happening. Did you look at it as it was flying away, or were your 

eyes buried in the instruments, where you looking at the horizon? 

82 
g

yg

McMurtry: I don't think we rocked the wings, but it was still exciting to see th

over the shuttle after it had successfully landed on the lakebed. 

Noffsinger: Tell me about the day of the engine fire? 

McMurtry: Gordon Fullerton and I were the two pilots in the airplane [747 SC

time. Gordon was in the left seat and I was in the right seat. We had just taken 

Edwards and we were climbing up--the airplane didn't climb quickly, it was a 

slow climber because it was very heavy. We had just gotten out over the Boron 

and, sure enough, our warning light came on the number three engine. We redu

power on that engine and the light did not go out. We sent the engineer down t

at the engine and he could not observe anything at the time, but we felt that the

some problem with the engine so we went through the emergency procedures. 

the engine down, declared an emergency, turned the airplane around and came 

and landed the airplane. The fire warning light stayed on the whole time--until 

just ready to land, and just as we were touching down the light went out. So w

a reason to breathe a sigh of relief as the airplane rolled out and came to a stop 

runway. 

Noffsinger: What were your concerns and worries about, at the rate of speed a

83 
McMurtry: Yes, there was evidence afterwards that there was a fire, but it was not a 

significant fire. They took the engine apart, did a complete analysis and were unable to 

determine exactly caused the fire, but there was evidence that there was fire. So either 

some fuel leak or some oil leak--there was definitely a fire. 

Noffsinger: Tell me your best memory over the entire program of your involvement in 

the space shuttle program. 

McMurtry: It's hard to pin down one flight, the Approach and Landing Tests were very 

exciting because that was the start of the program. We had to demonstrate that the 747 

could carry the shuttle. That was a major goal. But the other part was that we were actually going to separate from the shuttle and the shuttle was going to determine whether 

it was controllable and if it had the performance to fly down and land on the lake bed. 

Just being a part of that on an everyday basis and all the briefings that we attended, all 

the practices, the simulations that we participated in and then to fly the airplane. 

I suppose I could pick out the very first flight that we flew with the 747 with the 

shuttle on top. There was no crew in Enterprise at that time. When we taxied out we'd 

made some taxi tests and Fitz felt that the airplane handled and performed adequately 

to go ahead and make the first take off. I never will forget that Fitz turned, and there 

were four people in the airplane, and shook hands with each of us, and I thought that 

was a pretty emotional thing to do. I get a little emotional when I think about that. Fitz 

84 
vehicles, tend to do. They're not optimized aerodynamically, because they hav

launch off a rocket and perform as a spacecraft in orbit, and a very small part o

operational mission is in the atmosphere acting like an airplane. So they're not 

mized to glide shallow and land at very low speeds. 

The initial Approach and Landing Tests on the orbiter vehicle were, in fact, j

and that was to place the vehicle in aerodynamic flight by itself and exercise a

systems that we could, hydraulic systems, electronic systems, the fight control 

and landing gear, of course, systems and things like that, do it in a real flight e

ment, and to gather as much as flight test information as far as stability and co

parameters and performance parameters, and do it partly in an ideal environme

other words, not have to worry about coming in to land and the wind having c

and giving you a big cross wind, or low clouds or things like that. 

You could take off and an hour later, drop, and you knew what the weather w

to be. Of course, at Edwards, it was normally pretty good anyway. But you cou

yourself up ideally over the lakebed, too, so you didn't have the navigation co

that you do coming back from orbit. Plus, the vehicle itself, really, was ready t

before the rocket engines, the propulsion system was ready. So that gave NAS

opportunity to get a look at the orbiter vehicle, its basic configuration, its fligh

system, and make sure that it had an airplane or vehicle that could fly the patte

approach, the flare, and the landing, which was a very, very small part of its m

but a very, very critical part of its mission, and gain confidence in that prior to 

ting to launch into orbit. 

85 
didnt have confidence 

in it yet. So a visual 

callout on how many 

feet off the ground the 

mam gear was, was very 

important. Because in 

the shuttle, you were 

so high off the ground, 

with not a lot of visibil

-

ity out those windows, 

you had no feel for how 

far off the ground your 

wheels were, really; you 

just didn't know. So it 

was a big help. 

Wright: While you were 

in the Mission Control 

with Dick Truly, what 

were some of the duties 

that you had? What 

were you looking for? 

T

a

c

a 

n

th

M

(S

a

G

F

R

J

p
your immediate concerns were, first of all, to keep it under control as you cam

hooks, but then to get the rocket engine lit right away so that you could get off 

mission, but you were dropping away underneath and there was no real concer

recontacting the carrier airplane. 

With the space shuttle, that was our main concern, was to develop a separati

neuver with [Fitzhugh L.] "Fitz" Fulton [Jr.], the carrier pilot, to optimize the s

ration between the two vehicles, both vertically and laterally. So Fitz would pu

combination vehicles in a slight dive to get the right air speed-you wanted to 

to get 240 knots, I believe it was- in level flight, with the tail cone off. 

So he would dive the airplane and when he got on speed, he would call, - O

We would separate and call the separation, the - three, two, one, sep. And at t

the orbiter was sitting with a 15-degree angle of incidence. In other words, it h

degrees angle of attack and was trying to fly off the 747 at that time. Fitz woul

addition, put the spoilers out to dump lift on the 747, throttle back to idle so th

came off, we didn't slide back and take his tail off. Then the two of us would t

different directions as well, so that as soon as we lost energy and started to com

down, we didn't come back down on top of him. 

In looking at the videos, there was lots of room, lots of separation, but initial

weren't sure, so we optimized everything we could. We didn 't compromise any

by doing that, but we did have plenty of room for separation, and it was a coor

maneuver. Fitz would dive away to the side; we would pull off to the right; he'

off to the left, then we'd go wings level and go right into the data-gathering ma

87 
quent flight, the tail-cone-off flight, where we came down very, very steep and got the 

data with the tail cone off. 

So, basic characteristics as far as handling, response of the vehicle, we were getting a 

pretty good feel for that through the simulators, both the ground-based simulators and 

the in- flight simulator, the Gulfstream G-2. So we did exchange what information was 

important. But each mission was a little unique during ALT [Approach and Landing 

Test]. 

L

i

f

S

a

o

F

M

"

V

N
to determine what kind of vehicle they were going to have for the shuttle. At th

they were looking at having jet engines on the shuttle for landing and for transp

across the country. We were doing work with the lifting bodies. We took the X-

landed it on the runway to prove that the lifting bodies of those shapes could la

runway with precision. Based upon these demonstrations the engines were disc

from the shuttle and made it a much more capable airplane. 

From that I went to working here, putting in the shuttle related facilities. I ha

like [Stanley] "Ski" Markey working, for me who made sure that the facilities 

going to be put to the standards that FRC would require for future use after the 

program was over. 

I had other people - I had Bill Andrews working for me. He was responsible 

Shuttle Carrier Aircraft itself, for getting the aerodynamics and the flying chara

tics of the vehicle with the shuttle on top of it to be able to [launch] the shuttle 

the ALT] and also for carrying the shuttle across country. Interesting thing is, y

two different positions on the vehicle, the 747 for carrying the shuttle and for w

are going to have it launch for an Approach and Landing Test. It is raised up at 

angle for an approach and landing test so that when the airplane, the 747, woul

over after it got to altitude that gave a Yz a degree difference in lift between the 

and the 747 carrier aircraft so it had a positive separation capabilities and it wo

separate cleanly and was sufficient distance so the 747 could tum away and all

shuttle to continue on it's path on down for re-entry, or for entry I should say, a

ing at the lakebed. 

89 
McTigue: Well we covered them. The Air Force had the Martin Corporation back in 

Baltimore build the X-24A. 32 After the X-24A got delivered here I happened to be on 

a trip back to Wright Field and was talking with their program managers back there 

and they had an X-24B shape 

which had a higher L/D.33 

Now, the basic lifting bodies that we had had a landing 

profile that was kind of heart 

shaped, enabling the lifting 

body to fly to and land within 

in an area the size of California, not much more than 

California. But the X-24B 

had a size that would land 

in about 2/3 the size of the 

United States, so it had much 

PIGGYBACK SHUTTLE flight testing is nothing new to some 

retired Center employees. Then US Army Major Jim Love is 

pictured here in front of an odd combination found after WW 11 

in Europe. Results from this type of air launch were 

questionable then, too. 

32Eventually Martin Marietta Corp. and then Lockheed Martin Corporation, through a series of acquisitions 

and consolidations. 

33Wright Field is now known as Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, OH. 

90 
trying to do, get me fired? But that wasnt the case, they decided to go ahead a

it and that's how we got the X-24B here, just because we funded half of it and t

Force funded half of it. 

Noffsinger: The first time you saw the Enterprise what did you think? 

McTigue: I saw the Enterprise many times. The first time I saw it was in the as

fixture over at Palmdale, and it was just a tremendous sight to see, a new space 

taking place out there at the Rockwell facility. To me it was a very awe inspirin

rience; I was awestruck by the size of it and the capabilities it was going to hav

you were going to have capabilities to have five or six people on board and the 

bilities of working in the cargo bay area. I mean, it was tremendous to see what 

were trying to do. Johnson Space Center spent a lot of work and Rockwell has 

commended for the work they did to build these airplanes that were originally d

to have 100 flights each. There were three of them and there was suppose to be 

flights they could possibly get out of them, but of course they lost a couple and 

built some too. To me it was very inspiring because I learned a lot from Donald 

Slayton. I worked directly under him here. To get the knowledge from the astro

and all they had gone through to me it was inspiring. 

34Paul F. Bikle was the center director at the time. 

35Military Interdepartmental Purchase Request. 

91 
I came up with the way of getting a shuttle here to begin with. We came up with the 

cross-country roadway up lOth St. East, which is now called Challenger Way, then 

through the West Gate, which you couldn't come through now the way they got it. They 

got it all barricaded, but at that time we came through the West Gate and on in to Edwards and on to the flight line. 

Peebles: You were taking the shuttle down a city street. Did you have to move telephone 

poles, stop lights? 

McTigue: That's part of what Ski did. He went through the city government and found 

out what the restrictions were on the streets. We had to move certain telephone poles 

and light fixtures and stop signs and stuff I ike that out of the way. Some of them were 

removed temporarily and put back up after the shuttle went through but most of them 

were redesigned to be out of the way for the shuttle for the future. There was quite a bit 

of extra work that had to be done. Actually, making a new roadway down through a long 

western end of Edwards Air Force Base wherever Challenger Way stopped and there 

was dirt road that was essentially hard packed and made capable for the trailers and all 

36 All but one of the shuttles, Endeavour, were moved overland from Palmdale to EdwardsAFB, requiring 

extensive modifications be made to the roadways each time. By the time Endeavour was built the Orbiter 

Launch Facility had been relocated from Vandenberg AFB to Plant 42, in Palmdale, which not only 

facilitated loading the shuttle directly onto the SCA, it enabled other orbiters to be cycled through the 

Palmdale faci lity for updates. 

92 
McTigue: All the requirements for the Mate Demate Device were established b

and then overseen by the contractors that were assigned by JSC. So those com

tions that had to be established between JSC and KSC, sometimes they were fr

and sometimes they weren 't. There were a lot of communications that occurred

Dryden didn't have as much control over some ofthis that we would of liked t

had. 

Peebles: What are some of the unusual aspects of building it, the tolerances, an

like that? It looks like a skyscraper skeleton. 

McTigue: Basically that's what it was. It was a very strong steel structure that 

together to be able to lift the shuttle, which weighed quite a bit heavier than an

we had tried to lift before. Along that lines we had to build other things; we too

a hangar up at North Base, and that hangar had to be completely refurbished in

and out with rooms. We had conference rooms. We had office spaces and so fo

37NASA took an existing, large, unused hangar at North Base, not far from Dryden's shuttle area

an office complex within it to accommodate shuttle related personnel from Dryden, JSC, and KS

were working on site. It became a building within a building. Prior to this there had been only a 

trailers located in what is now Area A, the shuttle area, which was insuffi cient space to accomm

massive influx of personnel from the three NASA centers, not to mention the various contractor

shuttle program geared up for first launch. John Booksha, Oral History Interview with Christian 

June 2010, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. 

93 
repairing leaks on the X-15's cockpit to keep the pressurization right. They did that all 

in testing at different stages of building the shuttle so that when they finally went in to 

space they had a very tight airplane that wasn't leaking. 

The development of the engines was an entirely different thing. The X -15 engines 

were developed over hard lessons. We had lots of failures with the X- 15 engines. The 

shuttle engines, when they were finally developed, turned out to be excellent. They 

haven't had any problems with the shuttle engines through all their flights. Rockwell 

did a tremendous job in developing the rocket engines for the shuttle. 

It's an entirely different world now. Everything now is digital; back then, when we 

first started with the shuttle it wasn't all digital-it had a lot of analog work. But it's progressed and they've got the glass cockpit now that they didn't have at the beginning. 

Peebles: When I do the tours I tell people that when the X-15 project started there were 

biomedical experts who weren't sure a person could function in weightlessness for two 

whole minutes. 

McTigue: That's correct. There were a lot of medical people involved right from the 

beginning on the X-15 and their thoughts were that the pilots weren't going to be able 

to take the stress of the accelerations, the pilots were not going to be able to take sitting 

in that environment for any length of time. They were proved wrong but they were 

proved wrong by a lot of discussions and unfortunately people were coming up with 

41 ln the I 950s pilots who flew above 50,000ft invariably wore partial-pressure suits; by the time of the 

X- 15 they were wearing full-pressure suits, virtually the same suits as the Mercury astronauts. 

98 
Atlantis hangs 

in the MOD's 

slingback, nearly 

ready for the final 

lift before lowering 

it onto the back 

of the Boeing 747 

SCA. The landing 

gear has been 

stowed and the 

cockpit windows 

have been covered. 

NASA EC90-065-13 

42The Orbiter Launch Facility, or OLF. 

99 
100 
lebrities that came out. As I recall, Clint Eastwood came out and then Jerry Br

governor, came out. A lot of Star Trek actors came out, John Denver the singer 

out. So we were all pressed into service to ride in the bus. There were usually t

in the bus that rode out from Lancaster as they were brought out to come see th

ing. Basically, they didn't bring in professional tour guides or anything we bas

were tour guides for all of that. 

Noffsinger: Tell us about the load test? 

Meyer: As it turned out, the first time the orbiters actually fl ew was on top of t

Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. We learned a lot was from those flights. 

Columbia, when it was first taken down from Palmdale or Southern Californ

Cape Canaveral, experienced some tiles that came off the orbiter itself, and so

loose, and so there got be a real concern with the program--if they were comin

during this ferry flight down to Florida, what was going to happen during an a

launch. So a group of engineers from Johnson [Space Center] came out and sa

want to do some more work with the shuttle tiles and the air-loads and we wou

to know if we could fly some of these on the Dryden aircraft because these are 

43See Christian Gelzer, Fairing Well, From Shoebox to Bat Truck and Beyond: Aerodynamic Tru

Research at NASA s Dryden Flight Research Center, (Washington, D.C.: NASA Monographs in 

History #46, 2011). 

101 
up or strengthened before the actual 

shuttle flight STS-1. 

We finished the air-loads test and then 

later, on another flight down to Kennedy with the orbiter itself on top of the 

shuttle carrier aircraft, they got a little 

bit too close to some thunderstorms and 

flew through the edge of some rain with 

the orbiter. When they landed at Kennedy they noticed that some of the tiles 

H h lg t research conducted here 

demonstrated that the . new w1ng 

shape allowed the aircraft to 

operate more efficiently. 

had been damaged by the rain itself. That prompted 

yet another test project to actually try to quantify what damage flying through rain with 

the vehicle would cause. So we did some testing out here, and part of the reason the 

test came out here was that we had the relationships with the engineers at Johnson from 

the earlier air-loads tests. But there was also a tanker that was set up actually for icing 

tests here at Edwards. It was essentially a refueling tanker that had this big ring on the 

back of it that would spray water out and for normal icing tests it would turn into ice, 

but it could also be used for rain. It could create rain out ofthis ring. So the idea was 

that we were going to fly behind this ring and allow the water that came out of it to 

impact the tiles and see what damage was caused. We started the tests and we had a 

fixture on the bottom of an F -104 that had the thermal protection system tiles mounted 

at different angles so that when the rain hit it we could simulate the tiles that were 

102 
my career flash before me because, here we designed this real expensive exper

and it wasn't working. It turns out that, not unlike this week here in the desert, 

a rainstorm come in and we actually had the tanker schedule but we cancelled 

said: "well, we are going to go out and fly in some real rain because we've got 

instant we hit rain the tiles almost exploded. So of course 1 was very relieved b

the experiment, the text fixture project we put together, worked. But we were c

why the tanker here at Edwards hadn't worked, and actually kind of a spin off, 

a side thing from the project, we found that the tanker didn't work correctly. W

happening when the water was coming out of the nozzle on this ring was that t

flow was basically sheering the water, and there were no droplets coming out, j

so it wasn't actually representing rain correctly. After that they shut the use of t

or that water spray, down. 

Those tests helped the operational team establish some of the launch and lan

limits for when the shuttle took off and when the orbiter came back in. We did 

work on the Return To Flight and we did drag chute qualifications here with th

so before the drag chute flew on the shuttle it was qualified on the B-52.44 

One of the other projects that Dryden supported was the Solid Rocket Booste

ery parachutes, and we had what we all lovingly referred to as a blivit that repr

44The drag parachute was initially part of the orbiter but was dropped from the list of flight comp

before the launch of Columbia. Following the loss of Challenger and the down time the drag ch

revived and became a permanent feature of the orbiter, used to help slow the shuttle after touchd

103 
450ne of the definitions for a blivit is 'something that is hard to describe.' 

46Later estimates put the crowd at between 400,000 and 500,000; people had gathered on the eastern shore 

of the Rogers Dry Lake for several days in anticipation of the shuttle 's landing. 

104 
right next door to me for several months. What a good guy; what a nice neighb

Gelzer: When they brought you on here at Dryden for the Boeing 747 what po

you come to fill? 

Seidl: Actually I filled a mechanics position for about two years and Jerry Edd

the manager or site supervisor and then he was kind of. .. he had a wild life. H

enjoy things. He was just a character. Everybody loved him. So anyway, no fau

but he had to leave the state. (Laughing) After that I took over, and that was '8

Gelzer: Tell me about your job? 

Seidl: My job; I was a site manager or site supervisor for the 747 Shuttle Carri

craft and what that pertained to. We did all the aircraft maintenance for on the 

carrier. We did that for a long time without computers, but it got kind of hard a

computers came in. It used to be a lot more fun then it ended up being. We had 

times back then. 

47The E-4B is a Boeing 747-200 modified to serve for the Air Force as a "National Airborne Ope

Center for the president, secretary of defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff." http://www.af.mil/infor

factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=99, accessed December 16, 20 II. 

105 
Seidl: Right. You know, I have a lot of good memories. I guess the early times were the 

best. It used to be a lot of fun. There used to be no pressure. They didn't tell you there 

was a million dollar's a day to move the orbiter or any ofthis so it used to be fun; then 

they started telling you this, it became a job. It was a lot of fun. Of course we were 

almost living in Florida when we first started the launches and I spent 50% of my time 

in Florida, just about. 

Gelzer: Doing what? 

Seidl: Taking the orbiters back after landings because everyone landed out here then. 

So we were taking orbiters back. As soon as one would land we would take it back. Of 

course back then the tum-a-rounds were like three days or so. 

Gelzer: Once it was here it would take three days to tum the orbiter and send it home? 

Seidl: Yeah send it home, three or four. At the end it ended up being like seven or eight 

48Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, In compliance with 

Executive Order 12546 of February 3, 1986, chaired by former Secretary of State William P. Rogers. 

49"9 11" is a contraction of the airplane's full registration: N9ll NA. The first Boeing 74 7 SCA had tail 

number N905NA. The first digit in the "N" number of NASA-registered aircraft indicates which center is 

responsible for the aircraft, in this case, the Johnson Space Center. Dryden 's identifying number is 8. 

106 
and had all the heaters that worked and all this stuff. Well, we were dog-tired. W

people spend the night in the cockpit usually and if it was cold, even in the orb

when the orbiter was in the MDD we had to keep the power on. It was a long d

day - nights I should say - days and nights. 

Gelzer: You were one of the people that had to hustle off to White Sands Missi

Range, New Mexico, for STS-3? 

Seidl: Actually, I kind oflucked out on that one. I went to Florida, enjoyed the 

me and John Goleno went on to Florida and the rest of the guys had to do the w

the airplane there. 

Gelzer: Did you go back to White Sands for the trip home from Florida? 

Seidl: No, I didn't even go to White Sands. There were four other guys there an

covered it. We waited for them to come into X-68, which was in Florida. 51 We 

50The most northern area of the Dryden facility, Area A, was reserved for shuttle operations. Thi

where the Mate-Demate-Device stood and where all the ground support equipment was stored. W

shuttle landed a gate with a guard effectively closed off Area A to only those working on the orb

those with necessary access to the area. 

51KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), a single runway, carries the FAA identification code X6

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Gelzer: How long did you stay at these spots? 

Seidl: We didn't stay very long. We ovemighted at a lot of them but some we d

Some of them were just a gas-and-go. Keflavik, Iceland, was a gas-and-go, but 

ford, England, was the next stop. These people were crazy. NASA sent a whole 

of PR stuff with us and they gave us these little pins, shuttle pins. As a matter o

got one here. Anyway these pins were like gold. The English thought they were 

a Bobby's uniform. 52 When we went out ofthere they gave us five or six full un

the hats, the pants, the shirts. Most of them had to go home and said: "I'll come 

I'll come back and give you those." It was quite a show. They were great peopl

England was really a nice place. After that we went to Bonn, Germany. We h

good time there. They really treated us nice in Bonn. They went overboard. Go

went bar hopping that night and couldn't buy a drink, those people were so frie

Shots for everybody; it was a fun time but we all felt like hell the next day. 

Then after that we made it in to Paris. In Paris we were just supposed to disp

airplane. There weren't supposed to be any flights at all in the show. Well, Joe A

was in charge. He was the director of operations at Houston [JSC], flight opera

Anyway, he decided he wanted to fly it, so we started flying. We flew three flig

the 27th, 28th, 29th of May. The people just loved the flights but they hated us 

52"Bobby" is the vernacular for British policeman. 

109 
Seidl: We thought they had big airplane experience but they turned too sharp and got 

it in the mud. First time was enough: we said, no, we'd towed it from then on, but they 

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The SCA and 

Enterprise while 

taxiing at the 

Paris Air Show. 

One of the crew 

has popped out 

of the emergency 

exit with U.S. and 

French flags. NASA 

S83-36062 

decided, seeing as we were just going to be there one night, he would show us 

He took us to the fountain ofTrevi I believe it is, and then by the Coliseum. W
the air show: de Gaulle Airport is several miles away. That caused us trouble, too. For 

the first flight at the Paris Air Show we got a French colonel to fly with us so he could 

show us how to go and how to stay out of the traffic zones around de Gaulle. This colonel got in but evidently he had a mind of his own and he went too far out. In the paper 

the next day it said 'NASA breaks periphery of air show'; we got out of their little box, 

so that was a big stink. It was like we really messed up. 

Gelzer: What altitude were you flying at? 

Seidl: Well, it was pretty low. They usually fly a couple thousand feet. 

Gelzer: Just a couple thousand feet so people can see things pretty clearly ... 

Seidl: Yeah, I think that colonel ... I don 't know if it was in the translation or what, but 

we got outside of this area. When we got to Italy they said we could fly anywhere we 

wanted to. 

Gelzer: Did you tour the city before you landed? 

Seidl: Yeah, fly over? Yeah we sure did. 

Gelzer: And I guess the same thing on departure? 

11 2 
Seidl: Yeah pretty much. We'd fly around and let everybody look. It was a lot o

lot of people. It was just amazing. 

Gelzer: Did you run out of pins to give away? 

Seidl: No, they gave us thousands of those pins. My gosh, we had so many pin

we even came home with some. I was really amazed at all the stuff they give a

they had a lot. 

Gelzer: And you flew--unlike taking an actual orbiter back to Florida, which re

everybody to fly on a Pathfinder--you flew on the 747 with everybodyY 

53 With active shuttles returning to the Cape, NASA arranged for a Pathfinder to fly ahead of the 

about 100 miles, to look for any kind of weather for the SCA and orbiter to avoid. This was bec

the first trip to the Cape with Columbia the orbiter not only lost a number of tiles but encountere

which caused a shocking amount of damage to the tiles. The Pathfinder sought clear, cloudless 

through and deviated around all other conditions; the SCA fo llowed suit. 

113 
Seidl: Just a bank of lights that light up the area. That was kind offunny in itself. They 

probably laughed at us when we ordered them but they had them when we got there. 

When we got there it was pretty late but we were working changing that pump out at 2 

a.m. and it was still daylight, so we never used the light-ails. That was quite a learning 

curve there. After that we went to Goose Bay, Labrador, that was just a fueling stop, 

and then on to Ottawa, Canada. Ottawa was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people 

out--they evidently had the word we were coming in because that whole place was just 

surrounded with people, it was so busy. 

Gelzer: You were the only thing they were coming out to see? 

Seidl: Yeah, and we could hardly get out of the base because there were so many; the 

traffic and stuff. That was kind of fun too. We got there fairly late and the pi lots went 

in to do an interview. We fueled the airplane and we were ready go. We came out and 

here's this big limousine and a van. The limousine was for the pilots and we knew it. 

All the maintenance crew decided we would take the limo, so we took it and left them 

the van. 

Gelzer: Did you hear about it later? 

54 Rocket propellants that combust spontaneously when they come into contact with each other, such as 

nitric acid and hydrazine, are referred to as hypergolic. Hypergolic mixtures are invariably toxic. 

114 
Seidl: No, there were a couple guys I think that had to stay. They stayed until p

late. Then, 13th of June, we finally made it home; that was one of the best trips 

took, I think. What really makes it nice is that we had the Enterprise so you did

all the purge requirements and all this stuff. It was really nice. 

Gelzer: Once you came back did they take off the missile defense? 

Seidl: Yes, as soon as we got back they took all that off. It wasn't on there very 

It went by the way side. Never put it on again. Still have the hookups and every

but never had any use for it; I guess that was the last big hoorah. Too bad they 

something like at the end of the program here. 

Gelzer: Flying it around? 

Seidl: Yes, actually they could pick up Enterprise and drop off another orbiter t

Dulles. 

Gelzer: Tell me about your trip to Mobile, Alabama, with Enterprise. 

Seidl: That was for The World's Fair, yep, in St. Louis. We off loaded Enterpris

Mobile and they barged it to The World's Fair. After that, after the show was do

115 
55Smithsonian Institution's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport in Virginia. 

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Seidl: Yeah, actually they were doing that for along time and then, when the con

with Evergreen expired and they let it go, then they started parking them togethe

course, when 911 first came, I don't know whether you know this or not, but it w

El Paso, Texas, for a couple years. From '88 to '91 they flew it out ofEl Paso. T

Paso guys took care of it. That's where we stripped the interior out of 911. They 

was going to be over $2 million to do all the work, stripping it out and doing all 

Well, we did it ourselves. We would send people from here to El Paso to strip it

take turns. One would go every month. Anyway we stripped it out, it probably w

about two months or so. 

Gelzer: To strip the airplane? 

Seidl: Yeah, to strip the airplane. It was kind of fun stripping it because you didn

to put it back together. 

Gelzer: So you don't care. The crew that did this came out of the Dryden shuttle 

Seidl: Yeah, it was our people. We did it. 

56 Endeavour completed STS-68 and landed at Edwards/Dryden on October 12, 1994. Its return to 

coincided with the completion of Columbia :S overhaul and return to the Cape. 

11 7 
people. It was really funny. Anyway they were like little rats coming out of buildings. 

We finally got in there, and then we had to wait for 911 to land at X-68 and offload. 

They went to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, to Eglin AFB, in Florida, and then they stood 

by at Eglin and waited for the weather to clear and then they snuck into X-68. So they 

were off loading and we was waiting over at Cape Canaveral; they had to finish because there wasn't enough room for both airplanes and both orbiters. After they off 

loaded it, they flew the airplane over to Cape Canaveral and then we took the other 

airplane, flew it over and off loaded it and then they took off the next day from Cape 

Canaveral and we took off from X-68 back home. 

Gelzer: How long does it take once you take an orbiter back to Florida to unload it 

from the SCA? 

Seidl: Well, sometimes it takes quite awhile, but it usually takes one night or one full 

day before they can get it off of us. It takes quite awhile. 

Gelzer: Almost as long as it takes to put it on? 

57Having just come out of a full overhaul, Columbia was inert. Endeavour, however, having just returned 

from orbit, still had residual fuels on board. Moreover, any experiments or equipment that came back 

were still in the cargo bay; as such the orbiter would need fresh air pumped into the cargo hold to maintain 

positive pressure. 

118 
amazing to see. They had so many kids we were giving tours to. I just couldn

t b

They loved it. 

Gelzer: When the SCA is in flight and it's got an orbiter on the back does it devi

traffic or do the air controllers move traffic out of the way? 

Seidl: No, they move traffic pretty much out ofthe way. We're so low we are us

under traffic. The only thing we have to worry about are news helicopters. When 

go in some place they're flying all over the place usually. That's the main conce

Those people were real appreciative too. 

Gelzer: What do you remember of the return trip from here to Florida, in which 

Gordon Fullerton was flying the 747, when they had to come back shortly after 

off because they had a light, an engine fire light? 

Seidl: They had an engine fire light, yeah. Let me see. I remember that happene

a matter of fact we had to change engines real quick. 

Gelzer: You had a fire then? 

Seidl: Yeah, we had a fire. We took one engine off, this was really amazing: we 

one off of911 and put it on 905. The only thing is, when you take one off of911 

11 9 
stopping was amazingly better on 911 then on 905. You could really tell the difference 

once they landed: you could stop a lot shorter with 911 than 905. 

Gelzer: Were there other peculiarities with the airplanes; one was easier for this and one 

was easier for that? 

Seidl: No, I don't think so. You know, I never heard the pilots say anything 

Gelzer: Or the mechanics complain about difficulty dealing with one and not the other? 

Seidl: No, they're pretty similar. They're very similar. Of course I had a preference to 

905 because it was the first and had low hours. It had a lot lower hours on the engines. 

It was a lot better airplane, I thought. 

Gelzer: Why did you think it was a better airplane, apart from the fact it was the first 

and that's the one you started with? 

Seidl: Actually, it was a lot cleaner and didn't have so much corrosion. The Japan Air 

Lines (JAL) plane had a lot of corrosion hidden in different places. As a matter of 

fact, after they'd bought it--Skip Guidry picked these airplanes out--he's kind of the 

flight engineer plus he's the maintenance chief on the airplanes, he kind of went and 

looked at them all and chose the airplanes that NASA wanted to get. Well, he thought 

120 
he was going to get fired because 911, after they got it back, started looking I ike 

had dished out around these rivets because of corrosion. We took the corrosion o

it was all on top of the stabilizers, the horizontal stabilizers. Anyway, he thought 

were going to fire him over that because they had to change the skins on the 911

Gelzer: The horizontal skins on the 911? They were going to put the end plates o

anyway. 

Seidl: Yeah, so it all ended up okay, but he told me that story. 

Ge1zer: 905 had the tunnel that went from the flight deck to the main deck and th

down out the bottom for the ALT. 

Seidl: Right. They took most ofthat out. It was mostly all taken out. 58 

58While preparing for the Approach and Landing Tests there was concern at Dryden about the possib

that Enterprise might, on separation, slide back and strike the vertical stabilizer of the 747 instead of 

altitude and flying away from the mothership. Dryden insisted on safety steps and modifications to th

The flight crew wore parachutes. Most remarkable, a hole was cut in the floor of the top deck behind 

cockpit and a corresponding hole was cut into the main deck of the airplane almost directly beneath t

hole. A segment was prepped in the side of the 747's fuselage so that a panel could be blown out. Fin

a tube ran from the upper deck to the cargo hold where the side of the fuselage had been prepped: in 

emergency the crew was expected to slide down the tube and out the hole in the side of the airplane. 

121 
Gelzer: You can still see the grate in the floor. 

Seidl: Right, you could see the plate put over to block the hole. Both airplanes are 

really outstanding airplanes. They're both good maintenance-wise. We had a lot of 

Inertial Navigation Unit problems with 905 at first, but then they upgraded and went 

to the Litton 51 s and then they went to the 92s; after they went to the 92s most all our 

problems went away. 59 

Gelzer: They acquired their first 747 in what year? 

Seidl: '74. 

Gelzer: This is only two years after they entered commercial service. 

Seidl: Yeah, they got it at a real good deal. I think they bought it for $16M or something like that, something ridiculous, and the reason was, the gas crisis at that time and 

59Litton Aero Products LTN-51 Inertial Navigation Systems. 

122 
long and here comes our airplane by us. It got in front of the Pathfinder and ther

nobody to look for weather for them. So they ended up going through a thunder

costing a million dollars worth of damage on tiles, just about. 

Gelzer: What were they carrying? Which one were they carrying? 

Seidl: You know, I forget which one, but they ended up with a lot of tile damage

might have been Columbia. I'm not real sure, but they damaged a bunch, 'cause 

rain of course takes that leading edge stuff and just beats it away. It's funny how 

can come through all the temperature and come back to Earth and yet a little rai

just peel that off. 

Gelzer: Those raindrops are hitting that at 250 MPH; they're going to hurt. They 

have been flogging that G-1. 

Seidl: I tell you what: if it had been anyone else other than Algranti there would 

been lots of trouble. He had a way of getting out of trouble. 

Gelzer: He goes back to the Lunar Landing Research days in the 60s and the acc

they were having at JSC 

60The G-l, or Gulfstream I, was designed as a twin-engine corporate turboprop aircraft. 

123 
supposedly is the weak link of everything. So we used to eddy current every time at Evergreen, you know we went into Evergreen for maintenance, they would eddy current 

around those fasteners in that strip plate. I'm sure they probably still do. We used to do 

that regularly just because of that. I was going to say in the crosswinds, I forgot what 

is was, I was going to say 25 knots crosswind max. It dido 't have very much crosswind 

capability. It couldn't take very much.61 

Gelzer: When they first took Columbia back, were you here for the first trip to Florida, 

for its prep? I'm curious about the number of tiles that were missing by the time you 

guys got to Florida. 

Seidl: You know, I don't know if there was any missing or not. 

Gelzer: They had trouble initially with sticking the tiles and making them stay. 

Seidl: Initially they did. As a matter of fact there might have been 3 or 4 tiles that came 

off but I think after that they really got them down because they changed their room 

temperature vulcanizing (RTV) stuff. Later flights we didn't have any problems at all. 

But I think you're right there was a problem at first. 

61Evergreen International Aviation provided aircraft maintenance services to NASA for its Boeing 747s in 

Marana, AZ, where the firm has a large presence. 

124 
set out and we were back in action about, it was about 3 or 4 days. 

Gelzer: In between uses of the SCA, especially once they moved the 7 4 7 s back 

Dryden and they kept them here and they performed the maintenance on them h

what went in to keeping the airplanes flight worthy? 

Seidl: Uh! The main thing was to keep up service bulletins, Airworthiness Dire

notes, and at the end it ended up being a lot of corrosion work packages. 

Gelzer: Even though the airplanes were in the desert? 

Seidl: Yeah! We found a little bit of corrosion but nothing like an airliner, espec

like JAL would have. Yeah, they decided to do these corrosion packages and th

really a lot of intensive maintenance. Tearing stuff apart, looking at it and putti

back together. 

Gelzer: You have a note here about the temperature in the summer and having t

inside the wing cell. 

Seidl: Oh yeah! We had a leak one time on the right wing of 905 and had to get 

of it. We were out there and I just. .. you could not touch that wing without bur

your hand. Anyway, we had to get in there and do maintenance on it. So we ord

125 
of brake, heated brake and stuff and the tire blew and it went up into a wing.62 After 

that--now this is JSC--they decided that you could not intermix tires. They all had to be 

one brand name, like Michelins or Goodyear. You had to have all one brand and no recaps. For a long time, when we first came on, we were doing recaps and we did throw 

a couple recaps. It was usually minor damage. It was like to a gear door or something, 

maybe a dent. 

Gelzer: How many landings do you get with the orbiter on back? 

Seidl: You know, the tires go pretty quickly, especially the body gear, the inboard gear, 

and the first to touch down. They go pretty quickly. You probably get maybe 26- 30 

landings on them and then they're gone. You don't have to worry about a tire getting 

old on that. They don't weather. 

Gelzer: What wears out--if anything--faster than you'd expect? 

62Two tires on the right main gear ofNASA CV-990 (N712NA) blew during take off from March AFB, 

CA, at which point the crew aborted the take off. During deceleration debris, either from the tires or from 

the wheel and brake assembly, was thrown up and penetrated the underside of the right wing, puncturing 

the right wing fuel tank. "Leaking fuel ignited while the aircraft was rolling and fire engulfed the right 

wing and fuselage." The aircraft was a total loss. Accident Aircraft Report: NASA 712, Convair 990, 

N712NA, March Air Force Base, July 17, 1985, Executive Summary, (NASA, Washington, D.C. 1986), 2. 

126 
Seidl: I think the most humorous thing I guess was to watch the pilots. It was k

funny to watch Algranti and Fitz Fulton--they both were bosses. Fitz out here a

and Joe back at JSC, they kind of had a lot of clashes and I kind of enjoyed wa

them argue and fight it out. Matter of fact, Paris was one of them. Joe was supp

go home after he got it there. His daughter was graduating from school and he 

to stay. Of course he was in trouble with his wife on that one. Him and Fitz go

nose on that one. 

Gelzer: He wasn't flying the airplane; he was just overseeing the entire trip rig

Seidl: Yep. 

Gelzer: Who was flying the 747 for the Europe trip? 

Seidl: Actually they took turns. 

Gelzer: They did? 

Seidl: Yeah and they flew people over there and swapped out pilots. I had a co

63 ln mid 2012 Dryden reapplied mission markings to 905 in a condensed form, in much the sam

they were on the NB-52B 008. 911 had already been retired from service. 

127 
Seidl: Yeah, he was. 

Gelzer: We're talking about the same Scobee that was an astronaut? 

Seidl: Yeah, uh huh. He was our pilot, even in Paris. June Scobee (his wife) was in 

Paris with us. That was funny. We were in Paris and this driver was taking us and of 

course we had one woman and about six guys in a van and he was driving us around 

and showing us around. Well, he went down to the Place Pigalle. I don't know whether 

you know what Place Pigalle is, but it's where all the prostitutes line up on the street. 

Anyway, we had June with us and we were going along and June said: "this is no 

fair." I asked: "what do you mean, no fair?" and she said: "well, where are the men?" 

(Laughing) She was quite gal. She was very nice. 

Gelzer: Actually, Dick Scobee flying is not that different from [Gordon] "Gordo" Fullerton who flew heavies-he was actually flying the parabolic flights for a while and 

then flew the shuttle, so it's the same thing. 

Seidl: Yeah. Dick was really good. You know, they were having tire problems with the 

64 Airlines have often moved spare jet engines from one location to another in what is dubbed a "fifth engine 

pod," which is a pod enclosing the engine that is typically hung inboard of engine no. 2 on a four-engine airliner. 

128 
Gelzer: Ofthe orbiter and 747. 

Videographer (Parcel): Gordo right? 

Seidl: No, it was Scobee. Dick was quite the guy. Of course I don't know if yo

he came up Air Force. He was enlisted in the Air Force. He was just a mechan

went to Officer Candidate School and got to be an officer and started flying an

right up the ranks and ended up being an astronaut. He came a long way. It wa

too bad about that. 65 I kind of wonder sometimes about the thought behind lau

a cold day like that. You could see the icicles on TV. Of course, anybody can s

guess. 

My wife, just about every flight we had, she'd bake something. She had trea

She made the best brownies of anybody. In all these years I would hate to gue

many brownie pans she went through. It was amazing. 

Gelzer: Baked for the crew of the SCA and the other people? 

Seidl: The SCA crew, just the SCA. I would put them on the SCA and everybo

65Francis R. "Dick" Scobee was shuttle commander of 51L, Challenger, which exploded barely 

a minute after launch, January 28, 1986. 

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kid, come here, we

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Gelzer: Your first day here you were basically sent over to East Shore? 

Talbot: Yeah, the East Side Dust Suckers. It was before the new security buil

which is now the old security police building, was built. We had these trailer

showed up for work, it had to be 1 - 2 o'clock in the morning, I wasn't check

with a weapon, I barely knew where anything was; they gave me a badge and 

and I was assigned to a staff sergeant. We got in the jeep-or squad car I think 

time-and we went over the Santa Fe Trail. The Santa Fe Trail is this dirt trail 

crosses the lakebed.68 Well, I didn't get over there until about 3 or 4 in the m

[It was] pitch dark, people everywhere and we were wandering around becau

were definitely out numbered, I mean we had maybe, maybe 50 to 60 cops, n

than that. 

We had some National Guard guys in jeeps, which were really scary. We h

that lasted 6 to 8 hours. By that point we were operating out of a tent. There 

small fence around the place and it was just such a festive atmosphere. There 

vendors; there were rows of the famous Edwards porta-potties held together w

because it's always windy, and row upon row upon row of 40 - 50 foot long RV

68The trail is actually the remnant of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad that crossed Ro

Lake, coming "ashore" at the town ofMuroc, near where the current Edwards AFB control towe

The line was relocated in 1953, providing the Air Force with full use of the lakebed. 

133 
disabled cars, so you knew what had to be done-nobody told you what to do, you did it. 

We had these 19-year-old airmen making the right decisions. We were in a sense a city 

of ... I think about 550,000 people out there. 

Gelzer: Joe D' Agostino remembers at least one trailer, maybe two trailers that were 

open for business. 

Talbot: Well, you know. 

Shelton: It was a city with all the accouterments. 

Talbot: The citizen's report read: "and the security policeman left the motorhome 

disheveled, pulling on his gun belt." (Laughter) Yes, they were working the crowd; 

they were in the motorhomes from Vegas, the young ladies topless on top of their RV 

[with] lots of police protection. 

At one point we had a young man who decided he was going to go up in the rocks 

over in the East Side area and look at the crowd through the scope of his rifle. He 

didn't hear the security helicopter that we parked a little behind him; I wasn't there 

but the story was, and sometimes they're embellished, that he felt something on his 

ear and he pushed it and turned around and looked right down the barrel of an M-16. 

By the time we got him in to the squad car he was grateful not have that man with the 

gun next to him. I don't know what really happened, but I know that man was very, 

134 
stant reworking the check lists to make sure that we had everything right, that w

talk to everybody--no big issue, we just wanted to talk to everybody, to get eve

on the same frequency at the same time. Then we find out we had too many pe

the same frequency; one of the things that was a constant challenge for us was 

figure out how many people are too many on the right frequency. 

Talbot: In the early days we sometimes had two dedicated security helicopters. 

four youngsters, four twenty-something's armed to the teeth flying around--you 

the runway isn't fenced, the lakebed is not fenced, so we had people coming on 

The first landing we had the infamous red Porsche that busted through and wen

out to the orbiter, didn't realize what would happen when a helicopter came do

you that way. He tried for years to collect money to get his Porsche redone; nev

For my second landing we had the motorcycle tearing out; motorcycles aren

as squad cars in that situation so we got him before the helicopter got him. A co

times I had the opportunity to fly security and nothing is scary as a lieutenant w

M-16. When [President] Reagan was here [July 1984] it was horrendous. We h

these issues and the aircraft were a key part of my life at that point; that was w

could get cops in the right place at the right time. 

Gelzer: Describe or explain how the responsibilities broke out, NASA--Air For

who was responsible for what, at what point. The orbiter is coming in, you're g

form the convoy that is heading out: at what point does either one of you or do

135 
much more contact with them than we had beforenow someone would actually make 

face-to-face contact and let them know what was happening, when it was happening and 

[what] the issues [were]. I would have to tell every Wing Commander: "I don't know that 

I can call your airplanes back in time to be here, so some of your airplanes are going to 

get caught out, some of them are going to have to go to Mojave, maybe some are going 

to have to go to Plant 42, maybe they have to land at Point Mugu if they're out over the 

water [at the time]."69 The only other option is that we call our airplanes back three hours 

before we suspect there's going to be a landing, and we always suspect there's going to 

be a landing every time it's up there until an actual bum to go to Florida. It was always 

this "catch 22," trying to figure out when that was going to happen. We would call the 

airplanes in; they would come in and land; once the runway was clear we would go down 

and do a runway inspection and make sure there wasn't any FOD on the runway, anything 

that was going to do any damage to any tires 

Gelzer: How many people in NASA 25 were from the Flight Test Center? 

Shelton/Talbot: The two ofus. 

Gelzer: Just the two of you, and until you [Shelton] joined it was just one? 

69Plant 42 is shorthand for Air Force Plant 42, a Government Owned Contractor Operated (GOCO) facility 

in Palmdale, CA, with manufacturing and maintenance facilities as well as runways. 

136 
Shelton: Dave Sampson was in there once. 

Talbot: The way the Air Force is split [at Edwards], there is an Air Base Wing, 

is the mayor; fire, police, chaplain, medical, all of that stuff, and the Flying W

which was everything Bill did. As an Air Base Wing guy all my life I didn't ca

your airplane didn't [get airborne]. It didn't make any difference to me becaus

wasn't responsible; I wanted to make sure that place was secure. So when Jim 

erts joined us, when we finally got an air traffic controller in there it opened ou

to how important [it was] having both sides of the base there. We just kept goi

from there, and it blossomed. 

Shelton: NASA is always in charge unless a mode is declared. Now, that doesn't m

we are sitting there with our arms folded. What we are doing at the same time is m

sure we have the perimeter set up, that the [base] fire [department] does come in fr

the proper direction, that they do come in to enable any kind of assistance that ma

required should a mode be declared so you don't have everybody back at the fire s

back at the security police headquarters. Everybody is there taking care of the secu

fire, the helicopters; trying to keep the base up to speed on how much longer [unti

base can get back to the business of flying, that sort of thing. It was kind of a split 

ality; NASA was always in charge of the mission until a mode was declared, but a

same time we were positioning everybody that we thought we could get a hold of 

137 
there [looking at Shelton]--and I came nose to nose with a B-1. That was the last time 

I took a convoy out on that runway or that taxiway without airfield management in 

front of me. Nothing is so real as the front of a B-1 Bomber. 

Gelzer: And it wasn't parked, it was moving? 

Talbot: We were both moving. I don't know how close we got. Right then and there 

I had a religious epiphany that I was never going to move a convoy without Larry 

Ledford or one of his partners in front of me. 

Shelton: I think that one was because of this timing issue: he [the B-1] was trying to 

come back and land before [we closed the airfield]. 

Gelzer: What was the strangest thing you remember in connection with shuttle ops? 

Shelton: Wish you 'd ask me that one an hour ago ... 

Gelzer: You had something ready? 

Shelton: No, but it would have given me an hour to think about it. I grew up as a kid in 

the 50's and 60's, space as the final frontier, all of that mystique, and here I am sitting 

in NASA 25 looking out the window at something that just returned from space. Maybe 

138 
Gelzer: Youre not making this up? 

Talbot: No. You couldn't make this stuff up. 

Gelzer: John McKay, remembers doing a check of the approach pattern before 

ing and finding, I think he described it as two guys who had been--

Talbot: --oh, when they crawled across the lakebed. 

Gelzer: Yeah, who had been lying under the approach pattern, and when they 

challenged they said: "Well, we did this before ... "and they'd never been ca

they had been hanging out right under the approach pattern, maybe 200 feet f

threshold of the runway as the orbiter was coming in and they had done this b

Talbot: I got the rest of that story because they were in our holding area when I 

back from the field. We booked them, tossed them inside a building so they cou

see anything and gave them an MRE to eat; "meals ready to eat." Yeah, those g

done it before. 

Gelzer: Let's look at fire training or emergency egress. Take fire training specif

what were you measuring your preparedness against? How did you know what 

needed to do? 

139 
gest dogs in this neighborhood, but when we get outside the boundary and you get in to 

L.A. county and Kern county we may be looking for assistance: we need to start going to 

the highway patrol and the sheriff's department and fire department and stuff like that. 

Talbot: Civil Air Patrol. 

Shelton: All of those. 

Talbot: We had a new flight surgeon and he warned me: "Harry, you probably want 

to be up early because I'm doing a no-notice recall tomorrow and we're going to be 

on the flight line next to the orbiter [a bus stood in for the real thing] at 6:00 in the 

morning and we're going to do this until I'm happy," and he did. We had to retrain 

them every couple years. 

Gelzer: What was the last orbiter flight you worked? 

Talbot: The crash. 

Gelzer: Columbia? 

70Domingo Gutierrez owned and operated an eponymous restaurant in Boron that was the prime destination 

for shuttle crews after landing at Edwards/Dryden. There is a small dirt strip airport in Boron. 

140 
astronauts Richard 

Truly and Joe Engle 

donned flight gear 

from another era, 

along with fake 

mustaches and 

leather helmets, 

and posed 

for a second 

photograph. NASA 

SS0-27341 

Talbot: Yes 

Gelzer: Bill? 
the filter. It was done before the first orbiter flight. 

Wilt Lock said--as we always did for 25 years previously--"build breakout boxes." In 

other words, you have a cable; it connects two things together. Well, you build another cable where each of the wires is terminated in a box where you can kind of look 

at what's going on in that cable on the fly. When we first brought this up, the Apollo 

people and the people from the space industry said: "You don 't need any of this stuff." 

It turns out we needed it all. I mean, if you don't have a billion dollars, you've got to 

come up with some clever ways of doing testing and diagnosis. So the airplane people 

really did come up with some really good, old-fashioned ways of ensuring the systems 

were working. 

It was about the time that I was moving off the program that I coined the word 

"REBUS," Resident Backup Software System. And it turned out, the team behind me 

actually developed it and took it to flight. I should have patented it, probably, because 

it ended up in other airplanes. [With humor] My lost patent! But it actually worked; we 

actually induced software errors into the system, software faults that would be undetectable by any other means--probably still undetectable. And, lo and behold, it actually 

worked. 

Tomayko: How would you rate the F-8 program from a technology transfer standpoint? 

Szalai: I think it was extraordinarily effective at technology transfer. 

148 

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165 
170