Deuce Flight Trial 8

a thankfully-intact Deuce is taxiing back to the HAB from using nearly all the runway to stop after floating a ways due to the first bounce. Jeb says he'll take the faster approach next time, doesn't want more pitch authority as this will just make flight twitchy

with favorable weather and briefing completed, Jeb is heading out to preflight with Val, who will hop out before taxi and follow along in Flight Control as Jeb pushes the Deuce up to and past its limits

cleared to takeoff from Runway 09, Jeb is heading down to the turf. Taxi speed is generally about 12m/s, although care must be taken on the slope from the dirt runway down to the turf, also when transitioning off the dirt to the tarmac

positive rate of climb, gear up, Jeb will climb to 3km to stay within the thicker air while still giving himself a decent amount of recovery room should he need it for any reason

vectoring towards Umbarg, leveling off at 3km Jeb will hit 130m/s cruise speed and then begin to pull some very tight 360° turns, not yet at 90° bank but with a good deal of pull on the yoke to increase the G load

first series of turns went fine, but without much pitch authority to really yank the nose around while banked and level the turns only reached 2.8Gs. Jeb will next bank into a turn, allow the nose to fall, the aircraft to pick up speed and pull up through the end of the turn

Jeb says he has lost power to both engines. He's feathered the props, come about towards relatively flat land and put the Deuce into a optimal glide rate before beginning to attempt a restart. All we can do is hope and all Jeb can do is follow the procedures he trained

phew! Jeb was able to restart both engines after two attempts on one and three on the other, pulling out of his glide at 1.3km. He's now maintaining that while flying on reduced power back towards KSC to land ASAP

lined up on final approach 8km out for Rwy09, Jeb will be looking to come in at ~80m/s as flaps have been reset to their original configuration

the lack of a rocket launch has made this past week no less exciting, that's for sure. Catch up on all that happened along with additional information via bit.ly/OpsSummary1-15…