NASA SP-2000-4523

The Eclipse Project

byTom Tucker

Monographs in Aerospace History #23

NASA SP-2000-4523

The Eclipse Project

byTom Tucker

NASA History DivisionOffice of Policy and Plans

NASA HeadquartersWashington, DC 20546

Monographs inAerospace History

Number 232000

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tucker, Tom, 1944- The Eclipse Project/by Tom Tucker. p. cm. (Monographs in aerospace history; no 24) (NASA history series) (NASA SP-2000 ; 4524) Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Eclipse Project (U.S.)History. 2. Rockets (Aeronautics)LaunchingResearchUnited States. 3. TowingResearchUnited States. I. Title. II. Series: III. NASA history series IV. NASA SP ; 4524

TL789.8.U6.E42 2000629.432'072073dc21

00-067616

_______________________________________________________________

For sale by the Superintendant of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.govPhone: (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250

Mail Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001

Foreword.............................................................................................................................................................................iv

Preface..................................................................................................................................................................................v

The Eclipse Project.........................................................................................................................1

Start Up.........................................................................................................................................................................1

The Elements.................................................................................................................................................................4

Names..........................................................................................................................................................................17

Subsystems and Worry................................................................................................................................................18

Space...........................................................................................................................................................................32

The Proof.....................................................................................................................................................................33

Documents ...................................................................................................................................45

Eclipse Flight Log, Doc. 1 ...................................................46

Kelly Patent Number 5,626,310, Doc. 2 ..............................49

EXD-01 Flight 5, Docs. 3-7 .................................60

EXD-01 Flight 6, Docs. 8-13 .......................75

EXD-01 Flight 7, Docs. 14-21 .........................87

EXD-01 Flight 8, Docs. 22-30 ...........................................101

EXD-01 Flight 9, Docs. 31-40 .......................114

EXD-01 Flight 10, Docs. 41-52 .........................130

Eclipse Acronyms and Definitions, Doc. 53...................... 148

Note, Dan Goldin to Ken [Szalai], Doc. 54................................149

Project Pilots Slides about Eclipse, Doc. 55..............................................150

Index.................................................................................................................................................................................169

About the Author..............................................................................................................................................................171

Monographs in Aerospace History...................................................................................................................................171

Table of Contents

i

Foreword

The Eclipse Project by Tom Tucker provides a readable narrative and a number of documents that record animportant flight research effort at NASAs Dryden Flight Research Center. Carried out by Kelly Space &Technology, Inc. in partnership with the Air Force and Dryden at Edwards Air Force Base in the MojaveDesert of California, this project tested and gathered data about a potential newer and less expensive way tolaunch satellites into space. Whether the new technology comes into actual use will depend on funding,market forces, and other factors at least partly beyond the control of the participants in the project. This is afamiliar situation in the history of flight research.

Frequently, the results of discoveries through flight research are not implemented immediately afterprojects are completed. A perfect example of this phenomenon is the lifting-body research done in the1960s and 1970s that finally lead to new aerodynamic shapes in the world of aviation and space only in the1990s. Even then, the lifting-body shapes (for the X-33 technology demonstrator and the X-38 prototypecrew return vehicle) were only experimental. Other technologies emerging from flight research, such asmovable horizontal stabilizers, supercritical wings, winglets, and digital fly-by-wire moved more rapidlyinto actual use in operational flight vehicles, but it was never crystal clear at the start of a flight researchproject whether the results would simply inform future practice or would be adopted more or less com-pletely by air- and spacecraft designers.

Regardless of the eventual outcome in the case of the Eclipse Project, it was a unique and interestingexperiment that deserves to be recorded. Tom Tucker has told the story in an interesting way that shouldmake the monograph a joy to read. I thank him for his hard work, writing skill, and his flexibility as themonograph went through the coordination process. He was busy with teaching and writing another book;yet he unfailingly responded to my requests for technical changes in the monograph as various participantsrefined the details of the events surrounding the tow testing of the QF-106 behind its C-141A tow vehicle.

As editor of the monograph, I also want to express my appreciation to Jay Levine for his expert work aslayout artist and to Carol Reukauf, Mark Stucky, Al Bowers, Bob Keltner, Fred Johnsen, and Bill Lokos fortheir comments on the drafts of the study. Their assistance has made the account much fuller and moreaccurate than it could have been without their taking time in very busy schedules to apply their personalknowledge and expertise to the text at hand. I recommend the result to anyone interested in the history ofaviation and space technology. It will be especially valuable to anyone undertaking tow testing in thefuture.

J. D. Hunley, HistorianNASA Dryden Flight Research Center5 December 2000

ii

Star

When I was writing this history of a space technology issue, I was also busy at work on a book aboutBenjamin Franklins lightning science and deeply immersed in 18th century culture. In pursing the 18thcentury project, I found myself seeking out dust-covered documents from archives. What a relief it was toresearch the Eclipse story whose participants were all among the living and so willing to provide informa-tion. Eclipse was a joint effort uniting the efforts of three agencies, and to them all I owe a debt of gratitude,to Kelly Space & Technology, the U.S. Air Force, and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

Another Enlightenment perspective guided my approach to the Eclipse project. In the 18th century, scien-tists and technologists focused on certain key issues, such as a practical means of finding longitude at seaand locating the Northwest passage. The solutions to these problems would have dynastic import for nations,and individuals or groups finding practical solutions would earn a fortune worth a kings ransom.

In our day, there has been a similar key issue, one just as important to the course of human history, just aspotentially rewarding for those who find the solution. In the aerspace industry, it has become a sort ofinvisible barrier. For more than twenty years, the cost for space launch has remained about $10,000 perpound. No innovation has appeared to solve this problem. Among the scores of creative, exciting ideasconceived by small start-up companies trying to meet the challenge was the Eclipse project. Behind the tinyEclipse project resonated a large issue.

I owe a great debt to the many individuals, programs, and organizations which enabled me to write thishistory. First, I am grateful to the NASA-ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program which brought me toNASA Dryden Flight Research Center out in the Mojave Desert and supplied me with every kind of supportneeded for research and writing. At Dryden Center, Don Black and Kristie Carlson provided much courtesyand good advice. At the Stanford University Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Melinda FrancisGratteau, Program Administrator, and Michael Tauber, Co-director of the Program, aided me invaluably withtheir help, consideration, and provision of opportunities. The programs which brought me in contact withscientists and engineers who were NASA ASEE fellows at the NASA Ames Research Center helped me inthinking about and clarifying this invention-history project.

Many people inside and outside the three participating agencies gave generously of their time and expertisein interviews and correspondence. These included: Bill Albrecht, Mike Allen, Don Anctil, Bob Baron, AlBowers, Tony Branco, Dana Brink, Robert Brown, Randy Button, Bill Clark, Mark Collard, Bill Dana,Dwain Deets, Casey Donohue, Bill Drachslin, Ken Drucker, Roy Dymott, Stuart Farmer, Gordon Fullerton,Mike Gallo, Joe Gera, Tony Ginn, Ken Hampsten, Stephen Ishmael, Mike Kelly, Bob Keltner, KellyLatimer, Bill Lokos, Mark Lord, Trindel Maine (again), Jim Murray, Todd Peters, Bob Plested, DebraRandall, Dale Reed, Carol Reukauf, Wes Robinson, Kelly Snapp, Phil Starbuck, Mark Stucky, GaryTrippensee, Daryl Townsend, Mark Watson, Roy Williams, and Joe Wilson.

Readers of drafts along the way offered many valuable comments. I especially thank: Al Bowers, FredJohnsen, Mike Kelly, Carol Reukauf, and Mark Stucky. I am grateful to Dennis Ragsdale and Erin Gerena ofthe NASA Dryden Library for tracking down my numerous research requests. Steve Lighthill, Jay Levine,and the NASA Dryden Graphics Office as well as the NASA Dryden Photo Lab went above and beyond thecall of duty in giving this project the benefit of their talents. Steve Lighthill also deserves recognition for hisexpert work arranging for the printing of the monograph through the Government Printing Office.

Last and most, I owe a debt to Dill Hunley, editor, historian, advisor, facilitator, friend, and when a phraseneeded a different turn in the face of an impossible deadline, co-author. He made this book much better thanit started.

Tom TuckerRutherfordton, NC12 December 2000

iii

vi

Start Up

If you wander the halls and look in officespaces at NASAs Dryden Flight Re-search Center in the Mojave Desertnortheast of Los Angeles, youll see thatnearly every researcher has walls deco-rated with mementos from projectscompleted. Trophies, keepsakes, awardsthese often take shape as photographs.Hundreds of projects have resolved onthese walls into 8-by-10-inch glossies.

When you look in some offices, however,you see what looks like a yachtingtrophy. Its a snippet of heavy-duty rope.It is installed on a generic mementoplaque, but it was also recently thecenterpiece in a futuristic projectbrought to Dryden by a small venturecompany named Kelly Space & Tech-nology, Inc. This company hoped todemonstrate a new approach to satellitelaunching by first towing a spacelaunch vehicle to altitude behind atransport airplane.

Aerospace engineer Jim Murray keeps aunique memento of his participation inthe aerotow projecta large, messyjumble of monster rope that dangles fromthe ceiling. Its the only trophy in hisoffice space. When Murray leanedforward one day under the fluorescentglare, rubbing his hand back through anunruly mop of hair so that he remindedme of the inventor in the movie Back tothe Future, he preferred to talk of hiscurrent assignment, designing an airplaneto fly the atmosphere on Mars. But Icouldnt help noticing the rope over hisshoulder.

It is an eerie, snarled trophyutterlyunlike the polite snippets of rope thatdecorate other offices. In a glance, youcan see the lengthy strand in an entangle-ment no human fingers have devised.You assume correctly that it representsthe aftermath of some violence thousands

TheEclipseProject

Tom Tucker

of feet overhead in the desert skya ropethat has outslithered any mathematicalprediction, a mesh of energies, a witnessto unknown forces.1

If you stare too long, you imagine thescent of jet fumes, the deafening roar ofengines, the rope itself powering off thewall toward you. It represents a curiousproject, one that generated controversy atthe research center and at NASA Head-quarters in Washington, D.C. This was sobecause its central technology, for all theleading-edge electronics and aeronauticsdeveloped around it, was the rope. NASAinvolvement began in 1996 when a smallstart-up company first approached NASADryden from just over the next mountainrange in San Bernardino.

Mike Kelly, founder of Kelly Space &Technology (KST), is a pleasant-lookingman in his mid-forties with graying hair,and when he speaks, he often brings bothhands up as if trying to frame an idea inmidair. He has an engineers hesitationwhen he starts talking, which soondisappears as his enthusiasm takes over.He remembers when he had the towlaunch idea. It came to him late in thewinter of 1993. He was working out of hishome office, then in Redlands, California,just after he and TRW had parted ways. Forsome time, he had been thinking about aproblem in the communications industry:the stiff costs of placing satellites into orbit.Despite the rapid growth of Internet andtelecommunications technology, despitemany breakthroughs in efficiencies that hadlowered costs, there had been no break-throughs in the satellite delivery system.The high cost of launch had not changedfor several decades. It is difficult math-ematics to estimate exact costs for thisservice with its federal subsidies, but alaunch price tag might come in near$10,000 a pound.

I was sitting at my desk, recalls Kelly.I had been thinking for a long time

1 James Murray, interview by author, 14 June 1999, and the authors observations during it.

1

about strategies for taking off from theground with a reusable rocket. Duringone period at TRW, he had investigatedreusable launch vehicles, RLVs theindustry calls them. He thought about theShuttle approach, how the piggybackworked, and he thought of Pegasus, howthe under-wing stowing worked. Andthen he thought of pulling gliders on arope.2

The moment was the genesis of hisproject. Curiously, he recalls no excite-ment at the moment, merely a sense ofone hazy concept among many possibili-ties to file away for later evaluation. ButI went for a walk, he says, and thetowing idea came back, and I begansaying to myself, you know this makes alot of sense, and the ideas began to comefast and furious. By the time I got back tomy desk, it had me.

If you keep adding weight to a spacelaunch vehicle, reasoned Kelly, to getmore thrust you add more propellantwhich adds more weight and adds greateroperating costs. But Kellys conceptandit was a leap for an engineer/managerwho had devoted his career to ballisticmissileswas to adapt to space launchtechnology what was essentially thetechnology of a glider towed on a rope.

It takes formidable engine thrust to get alaunch vehicle to 20,000 feet. Kellyreasoned, why not let a transport airplanedo all that first-stage work? Kelly nextpursued a bit of research in the SanBernardino Public Library and discov-ered historical precedent. He found thatin the 1920s a British woman, the ro-mance novelist Barbara Cartland, hadaddressed the same problem because shewanted fresh vegetables from the Conti-nent on her plate. At the time, airplanepeople explained to Cartland they did not

have a technology for carrying vegetablecargoes. Although their airplanes couldcarry the weight, the problem was lowdensity. The airplanes could not carry thevolumes of something like Frenchlettuce, for instance, that would make thecargo profitable. She had replied, whynot pull a big airplane with plenty ofvolume behind a small airplane with anengine? A glider on a rope offers a simpleway to transport more volume (and moreweight).

You can pull more than you can carry,says Kelly. The point can be intuitivelygrasped without understanding airplanelift and thrust. Consider, for example,moving heavy boxes. Consider carryingthe load in your arms and walking.Consider instead putting the boxes on asled and pulling the sled by rope onsnow. The difference is rocket launchversus tow launch.

As Kellys idea grew, its efficienciesseemed to multiply. For example, where aspace launch pad might cost as much as$75 million to construct and is expensiveto maintain, Kellys idea depended on aconventional airport runway. Where one-shot rockets are costly disposables, Kellyenvisioned his transport and his second-stage vehicle returning home to theairport. Where weather conditionsimposed costly delays on launch padtakeoffs, Kellys approach offeredflexibility in departure site and schedul-ing.

The ideas flooded around him on thatbrisk late-winter afternoon. In terms ofspace launch, he had moved from theballistic missile paradigm to the commer-cial airline paradigm. By the time heapproached the sidewalk to his Redlandshome, Kelly had covered quite a bit ofground.3

2 Mike Kelly, interview by author, 16 July 1999. The Shuttle launches piggyback, so to speak, on its external tank withtwo solid-rocket boosters attached. Pegasus launches from under the wing of an L-1011 (initially a B-52) launch aircraft.

3 Kelly interview.

2

* * *

A few years later, Mike Kelly turned upat NASA Dryden with his experiment. Inthe interim, he had formed his company,Kelly Space & Technology, foundpartners and investors, and hired a smallteam of engineers, many of them retireesfrom aerospace enterprises in the SanBernardino valley. He had filed a patentapplication for his winter afternoonbrainstorm. Space Launch VehiclesConfigured as Gliders and Towed toLaunch Altitude by ConventionalAircraft he called it, and the patent waslater granted on 6 May 1997.4

After six months in business, KST hadencountered a kindred spirit on theissue of low-cost access to space. Hewas Ken Hampsten of the Air ForcePhillips Laboratory,5 who had pub-lished a new topic for SBIR, SmallBusiness Innovation Research, a broadfederal program that encouragesgroundbreaking and creativity in smallcompanies. That year Hampsten askedfor proposals to be submitted in thearea of space launch technology. InApril 1995, he chose KST from morethan thirty applicants and gave it fundsfor a Phase I SBIR grant, a feasibilitystudy on paper. With that successbehind them, the Kelly people nextapplied for and received a Phase IISBIR grant for a study that would be ademonstration of concept in real flight.Kelly wanted to do a subscale demon-stration of bigger things that lay ahead.He wanted to take off and tow a high-performance delta-wing aircraft behinda transport aircraft. His hope was analliance. The Air Force Flight TestCenter (AFFTC) at Edwards Air ForceBase (AFB) would supply and fly thetransport (a C-141A). The towedairplane would be lent or bailed from

another Air Force unit, and NASADryden would contribute its flightresearch expertise.

From the start, Eclipse flight issuesdivided experts at Dryden. Would therope introduce some new and possiblydangerous dynamic to the airplanes? TheKST visionaries and many of the Drydenpeople, who were recreational gliderpilots and had experience being towed ona rope all the time, saw no problem. Oneof the early project managers, Bob Baron,addressed this issue in the cover designson Eclipse reports. He had an artistintroduce images of the transport in frontof the interceptor and then draw a whiteline from the tail of the C-141A to thenose of the F-106 to represent the rope.Ultimately, the rope path proved fascinat-ingly different. But at the time, there wasno available evidence to the contrary.Baron reduced the problem for his report-readers. He reduced it to a reassuringstraight line.

There arose a growing suspicion,however, among many engineers andpilots at the center, within and outsideof the project, that the hazards were notas minimal as those attending recre-ational gliding, not so negligible as tobe reduced to a straight linethatsomehow dangling a 30,000-poundCold War interceptor on a barge ropemight be dangerous.

Curiously, there was little literature onthe subject. There existed no validatedmodelings of towed flight reality. Re-search through the library at Drydeninitially turned up the pioneer AnthonyFokker patenting tow technology in 1919,misty accounts of extensive Germanaerotow experimenting before and duringWorld War II, and some brief accounts ofthe United States working on the WACO

4 Mike Kelly, United States Patent 5,626,310, Space Launch Vehicles Configured as Gliders and Towed to LaunchAltitude by Conventional Aircraft, 6 May 1997 (See document 2 of this monograph).

5 Redesignated the Propulsion Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory in October 1997.

3

glider.6 Mostly, the research turned upanecdote.

The anecdotes did not bode well.

One account came from the legendaryRoyal Navy Test Pilot, Captain EricBrown. Rogers Smith, who was thenChief Pilot at Dryden, had a personalconnection to Brown and asked for hisinput. Brown had flown the German-builtMe 163A and Me 163B when they weretowed in flight tests by Spitfires. Hewrote, If the tugs slipstream wasinadvertently entered, a very rough rideensued and control was virtually lostuntil the towed aircraft was tossed out ofthe maelstrom.7

During the same period, a B-29 towedthe Me 163 at Muroc Army Air Field(now known as Edwards AFB). BrigadierGeneral Gustave Lundquistwriting laterabout the experiencestated, Thissounds simple enough, although it wasanything but. In fact, it was the scariestexperience I have ever encountered in allmy flying.8

The desert base had more history to offer.Several older Dryden pilots had flownwake turbulence tests in the 1970s andwitnessed Cessnas and Learjets tossed

upside down as if they were toothpicksby the wake of Boeing 747s. There wasthe case of test pilot Jerauld Gentry whoflew on tow in the lifting-body programand twice rolled over on tow release.9

Perhaps the earliest local anecdoteconcerned a tow crash in September1944. The test pilot had walked awayunscathed, and the incidentreported in asort of deadpan, gosh-gee-whiz, 1950sstyle by eyewitnesses in their swornstatementsassumed the proportion ofcomic legend on the base.10 But thestory of a nylon rope rubberbanding backat the towed airplane seriously concernedthe Eclipse investigators.

They felt even more troubled by theaccounts from Europe. There was theincident involving the Germans whosuffered 129 deaths in a 1941 towingaccident. The ropes to their vast glider,the Gigant, snarled in a crash that madeaviation history.11

The Elements

Kelly planned to use a modified Boeing747 for his ultimate tow plane. Noexpensive design, no lengthy develop-ment, no vast web of flight qualificationtesting awaited KST. The towed airplanewas named the Eclipse Astroliner, and it

6 James E. Murray, Albion H. Bowers, William A. Lokos, Todd L. Peters, and Joseph Gera, An Overview of anExperimental Demonstration Aerotow Program (Edwards, CA: NASA TM-1998-206566, 1998).

7 Eric Brown, personal letter, 17 June 1997.

8 Gustave E. Lundquist, From the PT-3 to the X-1: A Test-Pilots Story, ed. Ken Chilstrom and Penn Perry, Test Flyingat Old Wright Field (Omaha, NE, 1993).

9 R. Dale Reed with Darlene Lister, Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4220, 1997),pp. 60-62. The phrase on tow simply means that the aircraft was being towed by another vehicle.

10 U.S. War Department Report of Aircraft Accident, no number, (Moffet Field, CA, 5 September 1944).

11 The Gigants technical designation was the Me 321. It was a large glider aircraft that could be towed by a single largeaircraft or up to three twin-engine aircraft. The Discovery Channel has shown a video of the glider accident on its Wingsof the Luftwaffe series produced by Henninger Video, Inc. See also Janes 100 Significant Aircraft, 1909-1969, ed. JohnW. R. Taylor (London: McGraw-Hill, 1969), p. 108, and especially William Green, The Warplanes of the Third Reich(Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 645-648. Thanks to Al Bowers and Fred Johnsen forguidance to the sources listed here.

4

was a conceptual re-combination, with itsessential element the wing root andfuselage of another airplane, theLockheed L-1011, and its motors, flight-control systems, instrumentation, andthermal protection all borrowed fromother current and flight-qualified aircraft.

To test this concept, Kelly neededairplanes, vehicles whose identities wereat that point unknown. Because theAstroliner was a delta-winged vehicle,Kelly sought out a delta-winged intercep-tor so that it would provide a proof of hisconcept using an aerodynamically similartowed vehicle. He also was looking for atransport aircraft that would be a scaled-down version of the airplane that wouldtow the Astroliner in his concept.12

Kelly needed a transport airplane, aninterceptor airplane, pilots, crews, flight-test engineers, and a rope.

* * *From the beginning, the rope was there:Patent 5,626,310, column 7, paragraph 2of Kellys claim text, The launch vehiclewould be coupled to the tow aircraft by aflexible cable. . . . The rope was destinedto become part of space technology, but itspedigree dated back over the centuries.The apprehension about the concept wasthere in the beginning, too. Column 7,paragraph 2 of the patent continued: . . .the cable . . . would be attached to theaircraft . . . at or near the tow aircraftscenter of gravity. This is done to minimizethe overturning moments which would beapplied to the aircraft by the tow line.13

And as he and his partners discovered,aeronautical data on overturning momentsgenerated by tow-rope configurationsturned out to be nil.

The primary objective of the Phase 1SBIR study had been to define a basic

Figure 1.Aerotow spacelaunch conceptschematic.(Design 980440by the DrydenGraphics Office)

12 Comments of Mark P. Stucky, project pilot, on the original draft of this study, 16 September 1999.

13 Kelly, patent.

5

,Spectra , and Vectran . Tracor Aero-space, a Phase 1 sub-contractor, recom-mended Vectran as a result of thecompanys experience in towing targets.

Rope is old technology, dating back toancient Egypt. Rope of earlier centurieswas hemp, and the earliest ropes werehand-woven with strands no longer thanthe six-foot lengths supplied by bushesalong the Nile. When KST Manufactur-ing Manager Roy Hofschneider wentlooking for a Vectran vendor, hediscovered a small New York-statesupplier, Cortland Cable, which hadprimarily produced high-test fishing linebut then branched out into the manufac-turing of rope for barge towing. Ulti-mately, Cortland Cable would supply theproject with 1,000-foot lengths of asynthetic rope, every strand woven inand never broken or spliced but continu-ous from end to end, as specified by theEclipse team.

Vectran was, indeed, an amazingmaterial. It was a liquid-crystal polymerfiber with many virtues. It had thequalities required for the difficult task athand, including strength, the ability todamp vibration, minimal inclination toabsorb moisture, high dielectric andchemical resistance, a high meltingpoint, strong disinclination to degrade inextreme temperatures, and great abilityto withstand the effects of abrasion. Theother synthetics shared many of theseattractions, but Vectran offered the bestmatch with operational requirements.

From the standpoint of cost, steel was atempting choice, but a steel cable ofequivalent strength would weigh fivetimes as much as Vectran. The largestrength-to-weight ratio and resistance totemperature degradation decided theEclipse team on Vectran.14

As a shock absorber of dangerousoscillations, nylon had appeal. Not onlywas nylon of interest because it coulddamp energy exchange between aircraft,but the Air Force already had extensiveexperience with nylon rope (when aC-141A at Edwards set the world record,70,195 pounds for heavy cargo drop, itextracted and dropped the load on nylonchute lines).15 But nylon was good andbadit damped energy, which was good,and stored energy, which was bad. Andunfortunately, nylon weakened as it wasstretched. In effect, it destroyed itself, thefibers actually cutting one another.

The Vectran rope, on the other hand,got stronger when stretchedat least thefirst time. In fact, an initial stretching ofthe rope became part of every Drydenflight preparation. Vectran had interest-ing abrasion qualities, too. When thepolymer rope began to wear, it fuzzed upon the outside and thus protected theinner rope from wearing. Yet despite theropes great strength, Vectran also had aweaknessit was vulnerable to sunlight.After the ropes were prepared for flight,the crew had to find a closed storage areawhere it could safely store the puzzlingrope, which was used only for one flightper 1,000-foot length.

* * *

From the start, Kellys concept required abig tow airplane. It had to be a real brute.In his patent under Summary of the

14 Above three paragraphs based upon comments provided by KST on coordination, 15 November 2000.

15 Mark Watson, interview by author, 29 June 1999. Robert Brown of Lockheed Martin confirmed that a C-141A haddropped a sequence of loads weighing a total of 70,195 pounds at El Centro Naval Air Station in July 1965 by callingthe Air Mobility Command History Office, whose archives contained that information.

6

Invention, Kelly explains, The towaircraft contributes only thrust, not lift, tothe launch vehicle.16 The tow planehad to have power and deliver it duringthe critical milliseconds of takeoff.

The CV-990 first gleamed with promise asa tow aircraft. The Kelly engineers wereintrigued. Although they knew the transporthad some performance shortcomings, therewas a CV-990 at NASA Dryden FlightResearch Center already instrumented forresearch but at the time devoted to testingShuttle tires. KST negotiated to use thisaircraft but could not gain access. Wherecould it find a testbed?

A C-141A Starlifter rested on the ramp atEdwards Air Force Base. This airplaneand its ilk had been workhorses for theAir Force for a generation. They were notfancy transports. The C-141A crew knewthis particular vehicle very well. Itpossessed a special history and had evenset a worlds record for heavy cargochute drop. The airplane bore serial

number 61-2775 and was the first to rolloff the assembly line. It was a pre-production model devoted to testing.Although the airplane had logged a mere10,000 hours, its days were numbered. Acalendar date would soon arrive requir-ing perhaps more than a million dollarsin maintenance expenditures, whichwould not be forthcoming. The transportwith the illustrious history was itselfabout to become history.

Capt. Stuart Farmer, the Air ForceC-141A test pilot on the Eclipse project,compared the transport he flew to theB-52 in the sluggishness of its response.No finesse was thereor ever intended.As far as roll and pitch control [wereconcerned], he grinned, its kindadeadbeat.17 But the airplane hadpower. In the equation of operationswhich Kelly had sketched, in the part ofthe equation that represented thrust, thiswas, as Air Force Loadmaster KenDrucker later explained, one overkillairplane.18

16 Kelly, Patent 5,626,310, column 4, paragraph 4.

17 Stuart Farmer, interview by author, 25 July 1999.

18 Ken Drucker, interview by author, July 1999.

Side view of theC-141A towaircraft. (NASAphoto EC9844391-25 byCarla Thomas)

7

Kelly negotiated with the Air Force formonths. At one point, he received anoffer of limited support. Of course,when someone comes along asking for afour-engine jet transport, flight crew,maintenance crew, airplane modifica-tions, and instrumentation, to offerlimited support is one way of sayingno. The next months resulted in intensenegotiation and leveraging.

Curiously, the skepticism about Eclipsemay have kept the project afloat. Be-cause the project was viewed in variousAir Force units as so underfunded, sounlikely, no one took the responsibilityfor killing it off. Eclipse continued tosurvive.

At some point in the summer of 1995,Eclipse established a relationship withDryden. There were meetings with GaryTrippensee, who would be assigned asthe first NASA project manager, andStephen Ishmael, who was advising theproject from a pilots point of view.Nowhere did Dryden pledge flight safetyresponsibility. Nor did Dryden offer apilot to fly. Eventually, this situationwould change. However, at the time,Ishmael received an assignment to amanagement position with the X-33project involving a prototype for apossible future launch vehicle,19 andEclipse was given a different pilot.

* * *

Pilot: in column 4, paragraph 2 of thePatent under Summary of the Inven-tion, Kelly described the towed plane ashaving a control system which permitsit [to] fly either autonomously or underremote control.20 In the final version of

the invention, the pilot would be op-tional. But for test flight, Kelly needed areal research pilot very badly.

I was the new kid on the block, saysMark Stucky, a young former Marine testpilot who came to the Dryden researchpilots office early the next spring. Hehad the trim build all the pilots do, greeneyes, and an expression somewherebetween politeness and amusement. Hearrived with a nickname, Forger, that hadnothing to do with aeronautics, which infact dated back to some obscure event inhis college days, but instantly, it seemed,the whole base knew him as Forger.

Coincidentally, more than a year before,Forger had a glimpse of the Eclipseproposal. It was at NASAs JohnsonSpace Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas.His boss had called the former Marineinto the offices to look at some papersfrom Kelly. His supervisor knew he hadyears of experience flying gliders andsailplanes on tow and wanted his think-ing on the feasibility of aerotow involv-ing jets. At the time, the possibility thatForger might ever work for NASADryden, let alone pilot Eclipse, seemedas remote as flying around the rings ofSaturn. He thumbed the neatly drawnpages. What did he think, inquired hisboss as they stared at a drawing of thepilot in the airplane pulled by a rope.

I would love to be that guy, Forgerthought.

If you ask him now, Forger tells you hewas assigned by Dryden as project piloton Eclipse because no one thought itwould happen.21 In February 1996, hisassignment to Dryden offered him a

19 In a conversation with NASA Dryden Chief Historian J. D. Hunley, Ishmael indicated that during this period ofnegotiation, he contemplated the possibility of becoming the project pilot as an employee of KST. As suggested in thenarrative, this never came to pass.

20 Kelly, Patent 5,626,310.

21 Interview of Mark Stucky by author, 15 June 1999.

8

chance to accumulate some local-styleproject experience, if only in the meetingsand briefings.

Joe Wilson remembers watching Forgerfly the F-18 High Angle-of-AttackResearch Vehicle. Wilson, a controls andhandling qualities engineer, is a sandy-haired, tall man with eyes that gleam withcuriosity, who functions at Dryden as theBoswell of the center.22 Over the years,he has kept journals, partly on computer,in which he records the daily events atDryden, nothing by way of official report,but personal notes on what he has seenand heard in this almost small-towncommunity of experimenters.

Wilson remembers watching Forger flyingspin tests, acrobatic descents from 40,000feet and then afterwards tracking testswhere he followed another airplane at highspeed and through abrupt rolls, trying tokeep the airplane in his gunsights. Nomatter what the other pilot did, he was inForgers crosshairs. When you see asmooth trace on that, says Wilson, youknow youve got a good pilot. How goodwas Forger? Wilsons eyes get big.

Very, very good, he nods his head.

But theres a tricky paradox confrontingresearch engineers, Wilson says. Smoothpilots can lead you down the primrosepath. He explains that there are twopiloting styles. There are low-gainpilots, he says, and high-gain pilots. Alow-gain pilotif you look at the chartsseems barely to touch the stick, almost asif the airplane is flying itself. A high-gainpilot is working the stick constantly,

giving it inputs the whole time.23 Butthat day as he scanned control strips, herealized Forger, upon request, could beeither.24

Yet as Forger established a reputation atthe center that spring, Eclipse flightremained unlikely. A plane had not yetbeen identified. The KST engineers knewthat many airplanes might serve as thetowed vehicle. They preferred a deltawing. That is, they preferred the wing ofa Space Shuttle, the shape that enablesreasonable handling characteristics whenthe airplane descends from space into theatmosphere. Over at KST, one of thecompanys major investigators, engineerDon Anctil, came up with the idea thatthey might be able to use an airplane thatwas nearing the end of its operationaldays decaying in the humid, swelteringFlorida subtropics. This was the F-106,which Anctil had worked on years ago asa young structural engineer at Convair inSan Diego.

The F-106 was a remarkable airplane. Ithad an incredibly robust structure, beautifulclean lines, and power to spare. If youasked the Air Force pilots who flew andserviced the old warrior, they smiledit wasa Cadillac; they loved it; they had a softspot in their hearts for it. They bestowedupon it the affectionate nickname, Six.

The F-106 was born in the mid-1950s, anall-weather interceptor created to defendthe country from enemy weapons sys-tems. It still holds the official worldspeed record for single-engine aircraft,1,525.95 miles per hour set at EdwardsAFB in 1959.25 Pilots remembered it as a

22 James Boswell was the biographer of Samuel Johnson. His name has become a synonym for an admiring biographer orchronicler.

23 Joe Wilson, interview by author, 22 July 1999.

24 Joe Wilson, interview by author, 28 June 1999.

25 According to KST reviewers of a draft of this monograph. Of course, this has to be qualified to air-breathing engines,as the X-15 with a single rocket engine went 4,520 mph unofficially on 3 October 1967.

9

forgiving flyer both at high and lowspeeds, and it boasted the lowest acci-dent rate of any single-engine aircraft inthe Air Force. In those days severalmissiles had been stowed in its weaponsbay, one of which might have a nuclearwarhead, a spear to be hurled in somefinal, desperate war.26

When the winds of history shifted to anew direction, these interceptors nolonger had a mission. Following their de-commissioning, they had been stored atthe Air Force depot at Davis-MonthanAFB in Tucson, Arizona. They were laterremoved from storage, modified fortarget service as unpiloted drones,redesignated QF-106s, and transferred toTyndall AFB, Florida. Once a month onelucky individual was rewarded with ahot missile to demolish another 106.27

Few of the airplanes remained. Down atTyndall near Panama City, the last oneswere parked, Cold War interceptors onthe tarmac waiting to be used for targetpractice.

Could the F-106 be the towed airplanefor the Eclipse project? Could KSTnegotiate an agreement to pull the oldwarrior on a rope? Another questionintrigued KST engineers. Could theF-106 later be modified, outfitted with arocket, and used as an operational launchvehicle?

On 22 May 1996, an Eclipse teamrepresenting KST, Dryden, and the AFPhillips Lab made the journey to Tyndall

to look at the F-106s. It resembled a tripto a used car lot to kick the tires. Whichof the remaining airplanes might servethe project? But a larger issue was notcompletely definedcorrosion. Years ofsitting exposed to the salty air beneaththe Florida sun had taken a toll on allaluminum parts in these airplanes.

KST had sent two veteran engineers asits representatives. The KST lead wasDon Anctil, an engineer whose experi-ence included work on numerous aircraftincluding the F-102, F-111, and C-5A aswell as prototype design on the F-106.The other was Bill Drachslin, a designerwho had worked on many differentmissiles and in his early years had beenan Air Force maintenance crew chief onthe F-86 in Korea. Anctil rubbed hisgrisly chin and stared at the Air Forcefaces across the table. His West Coastbuddies had been taunting him. Theysnorted that Anctil might be on a missionto retrieve tuna cans and hangarqueens, industry terms for airplanes nolonger suitable to fly.28

The initial briefing did not bode well.The commander spoke. He had orders torelease a pair of F-106s, but he also hadcrash movies to show them first. Thehopeful aspect of the F-106, he ex-plained, was that the Air Force had lostaircraft but no pilots to date. What wasthe problem? In essence, the problemwas a 38-year-old airplane. The bad newswas four crashes resulted because offailures in the aging landing gear. Cracks

26 See, e.g., Janes All the Worlds Aircraft, 1964-65, ed. John W. R. Taylor (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 219; F.G. Swanborough with Peter M. Bowers, United States Military Aircraft Since 1909 (London & New York: Putnam,1963), pp. 154-155.

27 The F-106 was variously called the F-106 interceptor and the Delta Dart. At Tyndall after the airplane was modifiedas an unpiloted vehicle, it was named the QF-106, and at NASA Dryden for the Eclipse project, it was named EXD-01for Eclipse Experimental Demonstrator number 1. Both of these designations were local to very specific times andplaces. In conversation, Eclipse personnel who worked with the airplane during all of these stages often referred to theairplane simply as the F-106 or even 106. It is important to recognize these various names. But for the sake of simplicity,throughout this history, the airplane will usually be referred to as the F-106.

28 Don Anctil, interview by author, 14 July 1999. Comments of KST reviewers.

10

had also been discovered in the wingspars of several aircraft, causing minorfuel leaks. The good news? Four timespilots ejected safely. But when theEclipse team went outside to the steamyheat of the tarmac and hangar and talkedto the crews, they received anothermessage, one with a different emphasis.

Every airplane waiting in the rows had apersonality, and the mechanics whoworked on them knew it. They knewevery inch of these aircraft. The mainte-nance crew had picked the two best theycould find. They scurried about withrecords, logbooks, and grease-stainedservice manuals. Forger, Drydens TonyGinn (a young engineer assigned to theproject) and KSTs former crew chief,Bill Drachslin, climbed over the vehicles,peered inside, and took photographs.There were no hydraulic leaks, no fuelspills, no cracks in the control surfaces.In the briefing room, the message hadbeen that the F-106 was marginal.

Out in the hangar, the emphasis wasdifferent. Safe enough, said the me-chanics. Age, of course, would remain aproblem. For instance, most of theF-106s parts could not be replaced,simply because replacements were nolonger available in warehouses. The fuelsystem was not maintainable if anythingwent wrongit required 196 fuel valves.The tires were worn. The landing-gearsupport structure was suspect.

But as Forger, Ginn, Hampsten,Drachslin, and Anctil looked up beneaththe airplanes the mechanics had pickedfor them, they exchanged smiles. Thesewere flyable aircraft.

And the news got better. When Anctilattended subsequent meetings, he had theimpression that at the Air Forces admin-istrative level, the F-106s were almost an

inconvenience. The command waslooking forward with anticipation to anarrival of F-4s, a new generation of targetdrones. As Anctil tried to listen betweenthe lines and plumb beneath politephrases, his eyes grew wide. His pencilscribbled on the yellow pad, If selectedaircraft are modified beyond the normalF-106 envelope, Tyndall does not wantthem back under any conditions. Hiseyes grew even wider and he scribbledfaster: (Personal note: Tyndall does notwant them back period!!)29

Another issue resolved as neatly. MikeKelly had voiced the hope of acquiringtwo different models, the F-106A, theoriginal single-seat interceptor, and theF-106B, a later modified two-seater.Kelly had public relations uses in mindfor the second seat. He was a realist. Hewas not demanding or pressuring.Clearly, there were downsides withhaving two different vehicles to maintain.And the Air Forces horror moviesraised liability issues. As the questionwas discussed in a tiny meeting room atTyndall, Drydens Tony Ginn jotted in hisnotebook, Why risk two lives?30

But Ginn did not have to voice hisopinion. The Air Forces Dick Chase in abriefing pointed out that many significantdifferences existed between the modelsincluding different pilot training, mainte-nance procedures, aerodynamics, fuelsystems, paperwork, official reporting,and correspondingly different simulationand test operations. A bonus of keepingtwo F-106As was that one could becannibalized to supply the other withreplacement parts that otherwise wouldbe unavailable. Chase finished hispresentation and sat down. The two-seatissue vanished.

In the months that followed, Forger, too,grew attached to the F-106. When asked

29 Don Anctil, personal meeting notes.

30 Tony Ginn, interview by author, 27 July 1999.

11

about it recently, he leaned back in hisswivel chair in the Dryden pilots office,balancing in midair. It was, he de-clared, a grand machine.

He especially liked the afterburner. TheF-106 had one like none he had everseen. Typically, when a pilot selectsafterburner in modern engines, the fuelcontrol meters in a small amount ofadditional fuel to spark plugs in the rearof the engine, which safely ignite theafterburner. Once it is lit, additional fuelis then available for full afterburnerthrust. This gradual light-off results ina smooth acceleration. But when anF-106 pilot selects afterburner, abucket of jet fuel is dumped into thehot exhaust for a sudden and dramatictorch ignition. Theres a loud explosion,and the pilot slams into his seat from thedramatic increase in thrust.

It was incredible. Youd select after-burner, remembered Forger, tiltingforward in his chair, and then there wasa very pregnant pause. Finally, a bigboom and off you go.

How robust was the F-106? At the start,Ed Skinner, a veteran engineer assignedby KST to examine the planes mainte-nance records, smiled at the issue. Heobserved that although the aircraftseemed as ancient as some of KSTsretirees, it was well maintained and stillin great shape for the demanding tasksahead.

Another Eclipse worker who became anF-106 admirer was Todd Peters, theyoungest member of the team and anengineer who had recently graduatedfrom college. After an early test to getsome data on the F-106, Chief EngineerAl Bowers remembers walking awayfrom the control room with Peters, whofollowed behind him in typical brash

fashion, making scathing remarks aboutworking with ancient airplanes.

Bowers remembers a silence next,following behind him, and then a rustlingof pages as Peters scanned the data. Theyoung engineers voice emerged againbehind him, but much softer. There was anew note. It was awe.

F-106 rocks, he said.31

In any event, the Eclipse project at lasthad an airplane to tow, a geriatric war-plane, robust in its power but question-able, especially in a few unsettlingaspects of its emergency and life-supportsystems. In the months ahead, headswould shake, camps of debate form, andseveral Dryden employees would findthemselves called upon to make dramaticdecisions. But when the group returnedhome on the airline from Panama City on26 May 1996, questions had been an-swered, and a decision made.

F-106 was Eclipse.

* * *

Al Bowers became NASAs chief engi-neer on the Eclipse project that summer.At the time, real flight tests were only aproposal, but Forger must have glimpseda chance. I recommended Al, recallsForger, because he had both the engi-neering intelligence and also the passionto make it happen.32 Bowers is a genial,dark-haired engineer in his mid-thirtieswho sometimes gets so excited about aflight validation that he has been knownto leap up on a desktop in a technicalmeeting, shouting and pointing to hisdata printouts. But Dryden managementhad already spotted something in him farbeyond a scientific cheerleader, appoint-ing him as chief engineer on the presti-gious High Angle-of-Attack Research

31 Albion Bowers, interview by author, 25 June 1999.

32 Mark Stucky, interview by author, 22 July 1999.

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Vehicle (HARV) project. Behind hispositive, upbeat approach was an engi-neer who could weigh positives andnegatives and judge procedures andpersonnel assignments with a remarkablecoolness and insight. He would serve thedemands of Eclipse very well.

While management wrestled with fund-ing issues, the team began to address thetechnology. In addition to Forger andBowers, there was now Bob Baron whoreplaced Gary Trippensee as projectmanager. Bill Lokos came on board aslead structures engineer, responsible forensuring that all modified and newstructures were strong enough to ensuresafety of flight; also, Jim Murray broughtto the technical team his skills as anaerospace engineer and analyst; fromsimulations came Ken Norlin; MarkCollard served as operations engineer andthe flight controller; and Joe Gera, arespected Hungarian-born engineer withhalf a century of experience in soaring,was called back out of retirement byBaron as the flight controls engineer. Theteam also included Tony Branco and BillClark, teamed as instrumentation engi-neers; Roy Dymott, systems engineer;and the newly-hired Debra Randall as testinformation engineer. Later they wouldbe joined by aerial video photographersLori Losey, Carla Thomas, and Jim Ross.For many naysayers about Eclipse as wellas for NASA managers and potentialinvestors for KST, it was videotapesrather than technical data that oftenproved the points Eclipse was trying todemonstrate.

From the start, there was debate. As theteam began to plan flight-test procedures,the initial issue became high tow, thetraditional approach, versus low tow.Traditional glider aircraft have large wingareas, resulting in large lift-to-drag ratiosand correspondingly low takeoff speeds.

They take off before the tow aircraft andremain above them throughout flight, inwhat is called high tow. The F-106, onthe other hand, has a much smaller lift-to-drag ratio and a correspondingly hightakeoff speed of about 115 knots. Toacquire a high-tow position wouldrequire the F-106 to traverse the C-141swake turbulence from the initial low-towtakeoff position. This position wouldhave been foreign to traditional gliderexperience.

There were fierce differences amongteam members. Jim Murray recalled theseemingly endless meetings.Everyones got an opinion, he smiled;theyre more readily available thanideas are. Every test program spawneddifferences, but again and again, Eclipsecreated a spectrum. It was unusual howextreme the positions were, noddedMurray. 33

Many of the differences were betweenpeople who had gliding experience andthose who did not. If you had flowngliders or sailplanes or gone soaring, youhad been at the end of a tow rope. If youhad, towing was casual. It was matter offact. Some felt simply that if it flew, itcould be towed. Researchers with thisbackground felt that there were almost notest issues. In their minds, the logicalnext step was simple flight. Gera sumsup this viewpoint; he says, It was apiece of cake.34

The gliding people tended to argue forthe traditional high-tow position, appar-ently minimizing the risk involved intraversing the C-141s wake. And ifgliding people grew emotional in debate,the response fed on the emotions experi-enced in thousands of hours of recre-ational flight on weekends. The clincherin the debate came from Jim Murray. Hissimulations demonstrated that the Eclipse

33 James Murray interview.

34 Joe Gera, interview by author, 16 June 1999.

13

had to fly low-tow. The sims indicatedinstabilities for the rope and the F-106when flown high-tow, results which werein fact echoed, but more benignly, inlater flight.35

The Eclipse project stayed aloft by morethan technology efforts. There was also asocial context. On 28 October 1996, KSTscheduled a kick-off party. At Drydenpeople will tell you that in the genus andfamily of party animals, engineers haveno place.

KST president Mike Kelly, of course,was an engineer. But Kelly, despite allthe folklore and jokes about engineersand their poor socializing skills, didknow how to throw a party. He arrangeda splashy celebration for Eclipse in anold hangar at what had been Norton AFBin San Bernardino. There was food,drink, music, and the tables overflowedwith more than six hundred people.Guests included two congressmen andNASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.Kelly had hoped to make an impact bydisplaying the F-106 at this party. Aftersome debate, he had to settle for the C-141A and one of NASAs F-18s. WhenDryden research pilot Ed Schneiderdeparted the party early in the F-18, heswooped down over the merrymakers ina fly-by, evoking oohs and ahs.

Dan Goldin gave a speech. He describedhis vision of future NASA-commercialcollaboration in space travel. He reiter-ated his mandate, Better, Faster,Cheaper. And he gave a nod to NASAscollaborative partner in this effort andalso to hundreds of other small, visionarystart-up companies feverishly pursuingthe dream of a breakthrough in low-costaccess to space.

Coincidentally, that night a movie wasbeing shot in another hangar nearby. On

break, the movie stars and crew joinedthe crowd. If the movie people workedwith the stuff of dreams, the Eclipsepeople did, too. As one engineer wan-dered through the crowd, he and his wifemight turn and find themselves face toface with some starlet they recognized.

There were two sets of dream-makers inthe crowd that night.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, the Eclipseteam settled down to work. First it took acloser look at historical precedent, asKelly himself did at the outset. As notedabove, the earliest patent of the conceptdated from 1919 and was awarded to thepioneering Anthony Fokker, but usefulinformation was hard to come by. Be-cause of restrictions on the use of pow-ered aircraft in the Treaty of Versaillesafter World War I, the Germans didextensive experimentation with towedvehicles. But they did not create a bodyof theoretical literature. Nor had thesailplane and gliding fliers establishedvalidated numerical models. A fewtheoretical papers had found their wayinto journals. Murray described theflight-test information on towing aslargely qualitative and anecdotal.36 Ifthe Dryden Eclipse team members neededdata, they would have to do the teststhemselves.

* * *

Of all the agencies KST negotiated withand they were legion (Mike Gallo, KSTvice president for marketing and sales,once estimated that he had negotiatedwith more than 33 federal units and sub-units in managing Eclipse)Tracor FlightSystems, Inc., the F-106 maintenancecontractor, seemed to present the leastlikelihood of creating problems. This was

35 Bowers interview.

36 Murray interview.

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had no control. A recent restructuringhad placed responsibilities for man-agement of the Mojave work at Tracorheadquarters in Austin, Texas. Thecompany also had been fortunate towin a lucrative contract with theBoeing Company at the Boeing facilityin Palmdale, California. Tracor priori-ties, therefore, had shifted dramati-cally since the initial arrangementswith KST. Consequently, disputesbegan to arise between KST andTracor over work performance andcompensation. It appeared to KST thatTracor was charging more and doingless.37 My guess, said Bob Baron,was they put such a high price on itbecause they didnt want the busi-ness.38 Clearly, Tracor had its handsfull with much larger projects crucialto its own future. KST also was drivenby profit. But in the mega-budgetworld of aerospace, it could get drivenout by profit, too.

37 This section based on KST comments on the original draft of this monograph.

38 Robert Baron, interview by author, 11 June 1999.

a commercial firm. It had a hangar,first-rate technicians to service theF-106, and the original drawings fromthe manufacturer. The NASA pilot wasto fly two Air Force F-106s used by theEclipse project and just park them atthe Tracor facility in Mojave, Califor-nia. The support was expected toinvolve a simple money transaction.There would be none of the paperworkand serpentine federal-governmentprocedures involved in interagencytransactions. But there were glitches.Baron and Forger found themselvesfrustrated and stalled when they triedto arrange to fly the airplane. Becausethe planes still belonged to the AirForce, that services local representa-tive was required to enforce everyregulation. No one at Dryden enjoysremembering those days.

Behind the scenes at Tracor, however,events were occurring over which KST

QF-106 aircraftin flight duringFebruary 1997before thetethered flightsbegan. (NASAphoto EC9743932-12 by JimRoss)

15

At this point, Dryden would cross theRubicon. The decision would be made inMay of 1997 for the Air Force to transferthe F-106s to NASA, which would housethem, service them, modify and instru-ment them in a Dryden hangar. (Becausethere was only one government agencyinvolved in flight approval, the businessof flight research was simplified.) Andwith these arrangements new responsi-bilities for flight safety began falling intoplacenot without debate.

The Air Force C-141 team had it muchsimpler. The Air Force owned andoperated the C-141A. In fact, the 418th

Flight Test Squadron had a C-141A in itshangar at Edwards AFB. The 418th hadqualified Starlifter maintenance crews,and it would supply the pilots, theengineers, the technicians, and theground and flight crews, albeit on a non-interference basis. In other words,Eclipses work would get done, butwithout any priority. As Carol Reukauf,who replaced Bob Baron as projectmanager, later noted, when you lookedon the Air Force priority list, thereEclipse was, on the bottom, number 17.39

The 418th assigned Capt. Stuart Farmeras its project pilot. Farmer, a dark-hairedyoung man with an affable manner whorevealed a sharp interest in technicalissues in the months to come, was a newkid on the block, just as Forger hadbeen. For several weeks, Farmer hadbeen sitting at his pilots desk withoutany major projects to work on. When hewas called into a meeting and asked torespond to very skeptical questions abouttowed flight, Farmer gave the conceptthumbs up. He later admitted he was notsure of the aerodynamics issues. He just

wanted to fly. By the late date at whichEclipse actually flew, Farmer would havefive other Air Force projects on hishands, and non-interference wouldbecome an issue. But initially, his enthu-siasm helped keep the project alive.40

The 418th assigned Mark Watson as itsproject manager, replacing Bob Plestedwho had guided Eclipse through thepaperwork of transferring the F-106s toNASA. Watson is a heavy-set young manwith a shrewd ability for making thingshappen. Co-pilot Kelly Latimer came tothe project fresh from the U.S. AirForces Test Pilot School. A slenderyoung woman with reddish hair in aJoan-of-Arc cut and a sense of humor,she also qualifies as one of many Eclipselandmarks: when Latimer flew in theright seat on four of the Eclipse flightsand the left seat on two missions,41 shebecame the first woman ever known tofly as a pilot on a NASA Dryden flightresearch mission.

Other Air Force crew and personnelassigned included Morgan LeVake,operations engineer; Bob Wilson, thelieutenant colonel who oversaw safety;Roy Surovec, the deputy Air Forceproject manager; Senior Master SergeantJohn Stahl, the chief flight engineer; ArtTecson, who handled instrumentation; thescanner, Sergeant Dana Brink, source ofsome brilliant unofficial aerial photogra-phy; and Sergeant Ken Drucker, theloadmaster, assigned vulnerable duty atthe end of the rope.

For the Air Force, answering operationsquestions for the C-141A was simply amatter of looking in the regulations. Butfor Drydenand to the dismay of the

39 Carol Reukauf, interview by author, 11 August 1999.

40 Farmer interview.

41 Her two flights as pilot rather than co-pilot were flights 8 and 9 (tethered flights 4 and 5), 28 January and 5 February1998. Daily/Initial Flight Test Reports, C-141A, Flights F-5 through F-10, 20 Dec. 97, 21 Jan. 98, 23 Jan. 98, 28 Jan. 98,5 Feb. 98, and 6 Feb. 98 respectively (see documents 16, 24, 32, and 44). Incidentally, Latimer was a major.

16

commercially-driven Kellyin thebusiness of aerotow, it was a matter ofmaking engineering science. As Drydenincreased its presence on the project, twonew goals were added to the experi-ments: one, the establishment of safeoperating procedures, a Dryden hall-mark over the years, and two, thediscovery of new technical information,Drydens primary purpose as a flightresearch organization.

As the project gained status, Eclipseflight began to seem remotely possible.Forger and Gera both argued that flightsafety was a non-issue, but Drydenscheduled batteries of ground tests andflight simulations to make sure.42

During the summer of 1996 the Drydenpilots took cautious note. Several thoughtthat the greatest risks attended the take-off; there were scenarios of rope break oraccidental release, slacks and snarls aboutairplane gear. The hazard scenarios weremany. Joe Wilson remembered a conver-sation with Gordon Fullerton, ex-astro-naut, crackerjack pilot, and a shrewd,practical thinker about flight issues.Wilson recalled Fullerton cocking hishead, pointing out that there was noforgiving altitude. In the simulator,Forger had been doing inadvertentreleases at 10,000 feetat which altitude,if something went wrong, he had sometime to plan and do somethingbut ifsomething happened on the Eclipsetakeoff, Forger only had his reflexes.43

If something went wrong with Eclipse ata low altitude, it was going to go wrongfast.

Dryden Chief Engineer (and former ChiefResearch Pilot) Bill Dana also questionedthe safety of Eclipse. He explained that

he personally had a sense Eclipse flightscould be done but that as chairman of theAirworthiness and Flight Safety ReviewBoard, his job was to raise safety ques-tions. I was the devils advocate, heexplained.44

Names

If you ask Mike Kelly where the nameEclipse came from, he doesnt blink orhesitate. He recalls that he and MikeGallo dreamed it up in their conferenceroom one afternoon. What does the namestand for? He acknowledges there is nosignificanceits a name with a feel,easy to broach in a meeting, lofty sound-ing, a bit of verbal flare short on thedenotative aspect of language. In bluntfact, there is no eclipse in the Eclipseproject.

But names can decide destinies. If youpick the right name, Dryden engineerssay, it helps when you appeal forbudget or supportespecially if youfind yourself in competition withanother project as worthy as your own.And some engineers say that the wrongname, an unusually clumsy one, can doharm. At NASA Dryden, the engineersunderstood the importance of names tobureaucratic approvals, and over atKST, they also understood the impor-tance of a name when approachinginvestors or a bank.

A second name appeared later. It was anunofficial name. To this date, no oneclaims to be its coiner. It first appearedin public one day when Forger, climb-ing into the cockpit dressed in pilotssuit, test point cards clipped to hisknee pad, looked down. He saw arough inscription hand-painted on theside of the F-106.

42 Mark Stucky, interview by author, 22 July 1999.

43 Joe Wilson, interview by author, 28 June 1999; Gordon Fullerton, interview by author, 26 July 1999.

44 Bill Dana, interview by author, 26 July 1999.

17

Certainly the gleam of humor blessed thename, some inscription dreamed upperhaps during a stop at a desert saloonon the drive home, but it also fed on thedismay of expert pilots back at Drydenconcerning Eclipse. It read:

DOPE ON A ROPE

Daryl Townsend had been present thatday. The crew chief remembered peekingaround the maintenance truck. Forgerwas new. What would he do? If he was aby-the-rules sort of guy, a storm wouldfollow. Dryden was a flight researchcenter, and without expert researchpilots, it could not do its business. Thus,although they were often the butts ofjokes, pilots also had formidable clout,which they could wield.

There was no storm. The new pilotpaused. Townsend describes a smileperhaps, a subtle nod of the head. Subtleenough that Townsend had to ask Forgerlater, was he sure he didnt mind? Forgersaid it was OK.

The crew didnt scrub the name off.45

Subsystems and Worry

One mechanism needed for Eclipse wascalled by the technicians the knuckle, ahunk of metal, three pounds or more,much larger than a human knuckle infact, larger than a heavyweights fist, anasty bit of hardware in some events tocome but created for elegant purposes. Itwas crucial.

If the sole project intent were to pull anairplane, the knuckle could be omitted.But if technical data was needed or if thepilot needed real-time information onwhat was happening to the rope in flightand in fact he didthis knuckle was anecessity. This universal joint attached to

the release ironwork, gave the rope freeplay, and instrumented both azimuth andelevation angles of the rope.

The Dryden engineers moved swiftly toanalysis and testing. Much of the analysisconcerned the rope. One assumption wemade early on was that the lift and dragof towrope is negligible, explainedBowers, but that was an invalid assump-tion.46 If that was not surmised, muchelse was. As soon as they decidedwhether they would operate in high towor low, the engineers could start lookingfor solutions. It was a given that the ropewould attach to the rear of the C-141A.In low tow, the rope would attach to thetop of the F-106.

But where some glider enthusiasts mayhave assumed the rope had to attach nearthe center of gravity (CG) of the F-106,the technical requirements for the Eclipseairplane were different. In fact, therelationship of the distance of the towattachment to the CG as compared to thedistance of the control surfaces to the CGwas the exact opposite of the arrange-ment that occurred on a conventionalsailplane. A sailplane has the rope attachclose to the CG while the control surfaces(elevator, rudder, and ailerons) are somedistance away from the CG. This meansthe tow forces can easily be countered bythe aerodynamic control forces. On theF-106, the tow attachment was in front ofthe canopy while the CG was locatedmany feet farther back in the center of theairplane, much nearer to the controlsurfaces. This meant the potential existedfor tow forces that could exceed thepilots ability to counter them.

Once the engineers had a plan for takeoffconfigurations, they could make otherdecisions. What would be the ropelength? How much weight would therope bear? What stresses did it have to

45 Daryl Townsend, interview by author, 25 June 1999.

46 Albion Bowers, interview by author, 8 June 1999.

18

endure? These and other difficult ques-tions required answers.

Kellys original plan had been to reusetow rope. To be sure, the rope came inexpensive at $9.30 a foot. Perhaps KSTgrew impatient with Drydens approachto decisions about the rope. Or perhaps itwas a generational thingthe majority ofKSTs employees were gray-haired semi-retirees who came of age working onaircraft and ballistic-missile projects back

in the 1950s. (Their employment as part-time workers was one of Kellys efficien-cies.) In personal remarks in interviews,younger Eclipse team members oftenbrought up generational remarks; theylooked across an age gap at the olderengineers, sometimes with fascination,sometimes with dismay, and occasionallywith humble respect. One youthfulengineer described the KST retiree-engineers as the kick-the-tires-and-go-flygeneration.47

47 Phil Starbuck, interview by author, 29 July 1999.

F-106 tow cableattachment andrelease mecha-nism for theEclipse program.(NASA photoEC97 44233-5 byTony Landis)

19

And they used that approach withVectran rope abrasion tests. Withgenuine zest and enthusiasm, two KSTengineers, Archie Vickers and BillWilliams (system engineering managerand test manager, respectively, for KST),describe an impromptu test of cablereusability. They took a length ofVectran to a Hemet Valley airfieldwhere they used it all day towing gliders.They beat it on concrete. They beat it ongravel. Breathless, they beat it finally ondirt and tossed it in a box where itrumbled with sand, dirt, and rock on thedrive home. Although they noticed slightdamage, they came to the conclusion thatthe rope was reusable. The rope wastough.

Early on, KST had investigated a cablespool to reuse the rope. After such reuse,would the rope still be as strong? Wouldit degrade or carry over unsettlingmemories (energies) from the coiling?Dryden pointed out it would be lessexpensive and speed up the schedulesimply to buy multiple ropes and useeach of them only once, thereby eliminat-ing a good deal of fabrication and testing.Drydens agreement to purchase theadditional ropes made the decision easyfor KST.

As the rope questions were slowlyanswered, the subsystem work movedalong. Tony Ginn had the early inspira-tion to convert an Air Force parachutequalification pallet to the uses of airplanetowing. The pallet was already flight-qualified and designed to be attached tothe floor at the rear of the C-141A. Thisconcept saved months of development,design, fabrication, and testing. The palletcame complete with a guillotine designedto cut the nylon straps used to attach theheavy loads to the extraction chutes.Rope release devices constituted a crucialsafety issue and here was an unplanned

blessing. But when they loosed thespring-load force of the guillotine blade,it failed. It would not cut the toughVectran rope. The solution was toattach the rope with a three-pin connec-tor designed by Dryden contract-employee Roy Dymott to a nylon strap, asubstance the guillotine could slice. If thatshould fail, the loadmaster might cut thenylon strap with a hand knife (a devicewhich, to outsider eyes, resembled asmall ax).

The device for releasing the F-106 fromthe rope also proved an unforeseen gift.When operations engineer Bill Albrecht,who had long been associated with theB-52, attended a planning meeting forEclipse, he asked, why not use B-52parachute release hardware, a device thatresembled an iron jaw?48 This wasqualified hardware, in regular use, inAir Force stock, and would more thancarry the load. Forger could activatethe release jaw electrically, and in caseof malfunction, he had a mechanicalbackup.

The emergency release device for theF-106 was the frangible link, or weaklink as it came to be called. The fran-gible linka safety mechanismwouldbreak before the rope or nylon ever broke.Although it was designed for emergencyrelease, on later flights the Eclipse teamstarted breaking the frangible link torelease from tow because it kept theinstrumented knuckle assembly attachedto the F-106s release mechanism where itcould readily be used again. When theteam initially used the release in theconfiguration designed for the first flight,the knuckle was on the end of the 1,000-foot rope still attached at the other end tothe Starlifter. It whipped so wildly in thehurricane-force winds that the frangiblelink snapped and the knuckle was lost inthe desert.

48 Bill Albrecht, interview by author, 17 June 1999. According to Al Bowers, the idea arose earlier among Collard,Forger, and himself, but it could not be implemented without Albrechts OK. Bowers comments on a draft of thismonograph.

20

KST had designed the basic frangiblelink. Its initial plan had been to couple itwith off-the-shelf load cells from acommercial source. At Dryden, however,Bill Lokos redesigned the link; it was anifty solution that eliminated the need fora separate load cell on the C-141A (tow-train) end of the assembly. To accomplishthis, Lokos incorporated an integratedload measurement feature using two full-strain-gage tension bridges installed inthe link itself, and also made othermodifications, including changes in thealloy to ensure proper hardness through-out and changes in the neck diameter ofthe link (on the basis of extensive ten-sion-failure testing). With these modifica-tions, Bill was confident the link would

break at the predicted load. The concernon the issue of obtaining a consistentbreaking load continued. The solutionwas machine-shop fabrication andcalibration of the links, each of whichwas to be used only once. To ensureconsistency, all ten of the links to beused in the ten planned flight testswere made from the same lot of steelbar stock that supplied the links used inlab testing.

Along the way the team divided sharplyinto two camps. The strength of the weaklink had to be decided upon relativelyearly in the design phase because itsstrength, by definition, set the maximumloading the F-106 could be subjected to.

Figure 2a.Schematicdrawing of theinitial tow-trainconfiguration.(Design 980441by the DrydenGraphics Office)

Figure 2b. Sche-matic drawing ofthe simplifiedtow-train con-figuration.(Design 980497by the DrydenGraphics Office)

21

The stronger the value of the weak link,the greater the potential loading of thefuselage and the greater the beef-uprequired to the fuselage. The FederalAviation Administrations regulations forgliders or sailplanes stipulated that thelink must break at a maximum force of80 percent of the weight of the gliderbeing towed. If this criterion wereapplied to the F-106, the breakingstrength would be approximately 24,000pounds. Although the Eclipse tests werenot subject to FAA regulations, thisfigure was a valuable reference point fordesign of the frangible link for the F-106tow-testing.49

There were those who were advocates ofstrong weak links and those whoadvocated weak weak links. Thestrong-weak-link group was concernedprimarily about the hazards of a low-altitude, inadvertent link breakage andfelt the F-106 would crash into the desertif the weak link broke during the criticaltakeoff phase. The weak-weak-linkgroup, of which Forger was a vocalmember, was more worried about thestability-and-control issues under towand wanted the weak link to break beforethe airplane could go out of control ontow. For this groups argument to prevail,its members first had to demonstrate thatthe F-106 could power up quicklyenough to fly out of a low-altitude,emergency release before disasterensued.

Forgers claim that he could fly theF-106 out of a low-altitude, inadvertentrelease was eventually accepted. Usingthe newly instrumented Eclipse aircraft,he demonstrated landing approaches inwhich he swooped down with the enginestabilized at idle, the landing gear down,

and the speed brakes fully deployedtheworst-case drag situation. He held theaircraft inches off the runway as theairspeed bled down to 150 knots, a fullfifteen knots less than the planned towtakeoff speed. This slow speed simulateda rope break at the most critical time,including several seconds for pilotreaction. Forger then selected militarypower50 and retracted the speed brakes.The venerable J75 engine took sixseconds to spool up, during which timethe F-106 slowed precariously, but Forgerwas always able to maintain control untilusable thrust was regained. The test wasrepeated numerous times, the data stripsdemonstrating conclusively that the F-106had the flying qualities and engineresponse to fly out of any threateningsituation from the moment the aircraft leftthe runway.

Ultimately, the weak value of 24,000pounds was accepted for the weak link.On the eve of the first flight, there stillremained a number of team members whothought the link should have been signifi-cantly stronger.51

Another problem was that although theC-141A had an off-the-shelf tow ropeattachment available for a tow assembly,the F-106 did not. The KST engineersremedied this by providing a weldmentapparatus that was riveted to the nose ofthe F-106. It was black, a bizarre object.Because of its shape, the crews called itThe Bathtub. Like other new structures, ithad to be tested by structures engineerBill Lokos.

Meanwhile over at KST, Wes Robinsonled his engineers in shepherding the ropethrough breaking tests subcontracted to alaboratory in Los Angeles. When the

49 Based on KST and Bill Lokos comments on the original draft of this monograph.

50 The term military power refers to the use of maximum power without use of the afterburner. It is differentiatedfrom maximum power, which includes the use of the afterburner.

51 This section of the narrative is heavily indebted to editorial notes from Mark Stucky, 16 September 1999.

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rope was at last close to failing,remembers Robinson, it got hot and itwould weld and I remember the smell,that burnt plastic sort of smell.52

When the rope finally snapped, thesound resembled a small cannon beingdischarged.

* * *

Eclipse had started with Gary Trippensee asproject manager and had transitioned toBob Baron and now changed again. CarolReukauf, a diminutive woman in herforties, came aboard as project manager inApril of 1997. Reukauf tended to be casualin manner, but behind the informal appear-ance was a woman with remarkableorganizational abilities and a shrewd abilityto deal with groups of people. She cameaboard just as the mechanical assembly ofthe fixtures on the F-106 converted it to itstow (EXD-01) configuration and theground testing began. This was also when aseries of safety review meetings appearedon the horizon, a few of them viewed asthreatening by the team. There wereprocedures and papers to be filed, saysBowers, and we knew she would be goodat it.53

In the flight reports, however, Reukaufwrote in a style very different from thatused in typical NASA reports. Herlanguage seemed to come from the worldof self-improvement and group support.For example, her last report states, Iadvise everyone to reflect on their Eclipseexperience, take the personal lessons thatyou learned and apply [them] to yourfuture endeavors.54

Her upbeat comments in these reportswere, in a sense, directives. They were nota threat. But in retrospect, they firmlypointed many people in the same directionat a point when the multi-partner effortseemed in some weeks about to collapse.It was important to stay on a positivenote, she says, because you dont needany negative notes when you are trying toget the project done in a rush.55

She was also famous for extended meet-ings, although she insists they never lastedmore than one and a half hours; theyhappened every Tuesday morning in thelakebed conference room, a meeting areathat looked out on the runway. The primaryEclipse members were required to come,and her insistence kept everyone focused,every unit and agency in the loop. If youask today, many Eclipse members reportan unusual sense of involvement and funwith the unruly project. Ken Drucker of theAir Force, for instance, testifies, It was thehighlight of my career.56

To the dismay of some, Reukauf in-volved as many members as she could indebate on issues that were related tosafety, instead of deferring to expertopinion only. Bud Howell, KST repre-sentative at the weekly meetings, notedthat Carols insistence upon hearing allsides of an issue had a very positiveeffect on team morale. Forger, on theother hand, recalls lengthy discussionsspent ferreting out the ridiculous.57

Reukaufs response? It was good forForger, she smiles. We needed every-one to consider the ramifications ofdecisions on this complex project. She

52 Wes Robinson, interview by author, 30 July 1999.

53 Albion Bowers, interview by author, 10 August 1999.

54 Project Managers Comments, Eclipse EXD-01 Flight 10, 6 Feb. 1998, Eclipse Flight Report (see document 41).

55 Reukauf interview.

56 Drucker interview; Reukaufs comments on a draft of this monograph.

57 KST comment; Mark Stucky, interview by author, 22 July 1999.

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also emphasizes that she applied thisapproach for the specific reason that Iwas concerned that the stronger, morearticulate members of the team tended toexpress their views to the exclusion ofthose who differed with them. She sawthe potential for damage to a team whosemembers already had sometimes contra-dictory agendas.58

Reukauf also made a point at the end ofeach meeting to ask for a comment fromeach member. Jim Murray would sitsilently throughout the meeting, sherecalled, and when she called on thebrilliant engineer at the end, he wouldbring up a point nobody had thought ofand usually, he was right.59 In hind-sight, her approach created a unifiedteam.

One of the great debates raging waswhether the ropes oscillations mightdevelop some pitching motion or un-stable energy. The antithesis was thestraight-line rope illustrated on the earlyreport covers. Joe Gera defendedstraight-rope theory. You cant push arope, he said. Jim Murray argueddifferently. He suggested there might bea bungee effect. What, he asked, if therope goes boing-boing?60

Later, Murray and Gera decided to put thequestion to an unauthorized test. It was agood-natured jauntand also a secret as faras management was concerned. The twosigned out for a day of leave (vacation),borrowed some load instruments from thelab, and set off to do the experiment ontheir own. They found a glider-towingcompany with an owner cynical but willingto pull their rented glider on an instru-mented rope behind his tow airplane so

they could gather data. Space technology?Uh-hum. When the two returned to Drydenthe next day, word had already reachedproject management. Reukauf spoke witheach of them immediately. She came ontough, but curiously, Murray remembered,It was very much like a mother scolding achild.61 It was a tone that commanded,and she halted a growing Eclipse tendencyto take legal risks on this high-visibilityproject so casually.

Reukauf herself in a few days found anauthorized way for them to continue thesevaluable tests and still deal with liabilityissues. In fact, she found a way to use afederal government credit card and adhereto regulations about use of governmentequipment. This permitted Murray,Forger, and Gera to gather more experi-mental data in an unconventional way.

One great fear of skeptics was that some-how the wake turbulence of the C-141Awould upset the F-106. In one test in the fallof 1996, the experimenters put smokegenerators on the wings of the Starlifter andflew to see what patterns were traced in thesky. Forger took a leading role in actualflight tests addressing the issue. There wereseveral factors. One was downwash, thestreaming of air off the transports wing, adisturbance that later Forger described as nomore unsettling than driving a car on agravelly road. But the big concern wasvortices, severe air disturbances comingfrom each wingtip of the mammoth trans-port. The vortices proved to be smalltornadoes which, as they moved away fromtheir source and increased in size, for somedistance at least also increased as hazards.

In the spring of 1997, Forger flew an F-18into the wake of the C-141A. He flew in

58 Comments by Reukauf on a draft of this study, September 1999.

59 Reukauf interview and corrections in her review of a draft of this study.

60 Murray interview.

61 Ibid.

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near the transports tail. He would takestabs at the vortices with his wing tip andevery time he did, the F-18 rolled off.Even at a distance, team members couldsee a vortex. Sometimes it would mixwith the exhaust blowing, and in the glintof the sun, remembered Mark Collard,you could see it was tubular. I could seeit. He could, too, at times.62

How big across was the vortex whenencountered a thousand feet behind thetransport? About as wide across as avolleyball, grinned Forger. It was anon-issue.63 So there he was up in thesky, playing volleyball with violent air.Later in the summer, he flew the F-106behind the Starlifter in similar tests.There were no problems for Eclipse.

One regulation did, however, become anissue. The engineers had air-speed andaltitude windows they wanted to investi-gate to validate the research simulation.The hunch was that an airspeed around300 knots would provide ideal towing

conditions. If the petal doors were openin the tail, however, regulations requiredthe C-141A to fly at less than 200 knots.The Eclipse team asked: if the petal doorswere removed, did that speed restrictionstill exist? The petal doors provided nostructural stability. Obviously, the restric-tion came from a concern with unstabledynamics on the opened doors.

Lockheed, the manufacturer of the C-141,had performed dynamic analyses forflight with the doors open because usersneeded to know the maximum speed forpallet air drops, which required, ofcourse, open doors. Authorization to flyat a greater speed with the doors eitheropen or removed would require furtheranalysis by Lockheed. Reukauf remem-bered that the Eclipse team resigned itselfto the limit because there was no time[or budget] for a new stability analysis.But to this day, Ken Drucker, the AirForce loadmaster, regrets that he did notintervene in time with informal advice toget the team past the barrier.64

62 Mark Collard, interview by author, 18 June 1999.

63 Stucky interviews.

64 Drucker interview; comments of Reukauf on a draft of this study.

The aft end ofthe C-141A towaircraft. (NASAphoto EC9844392-1 by JimRoss)

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On many other occasions, Drucker andWatson did in fact help the Eclipse teamnavigate around Air Force regulations.But the speed limit remained at 200 knots.

* * *

Dryden and the AFFTC may have sharedthe same runway, but they came from twodifferent cultures. Often parties to bothagencies would have moments of cultureshock. Once Watson remembers depart-ing one of the lengthy Eclipse meetingsaccompanied by Lieutenant Colonel BobWilson. Wilson shook his head slowly atwhat he had just been hearing, astonishedat the intense interest of the NASApeople in issues that struck him as purelytheoretical.65

KST felt these cultural differences, too.Late in the summer of 1997, KST projectmanager Bob Keltner paid a visit toDryden. He had worked on the Atlasmissile earlier in his life and later spentdecades at TRW. He got out of his car inthe sweltering heat of the Dryden parkinglot with some trepidation. He was aboutto present a list of grievances to CarolReukauf. It was a curious documentroughly printed in capital letters by hand.The title was PROGRAM DELAYRESPONSIBILITY. He noted quite anumber of these responsibilities andattributed a few of them to KST. He nexthad penned a section entitled ACTS OFGOD, which left, of course, ACTS OFNASA.66

There were many acts of NASA, asubstantial number of them concerningDrydens level of safety preparation a