Here is Deke Slaytons' early T-33A Flight Test Report from Edwards Air Force Base dating back to 1955 loaded with what are presumed to be Slaytons' handwritten notes, charts, and equations. About 50 pages of charts and foldouts. The back few pages were in rough shape and some had to be cropped but its' wear and tear is what makes me excited about owning something that Slayton authored such a long time ago! Slayton was chosen as one of the original Mercury Seven Astronauts in 1959. Unfortunately, Slayton passed away on June 13, 1993 after having been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
COVER
TITLE PAGE
The below page shows Slayton was both the pilot and engineer for these tests.
Slaytons' initials, 'DKS', are at the end of the
'Technical Note No.', along with the location, 'AFFTC', and year, '55'.
PUBLICATION REVIEW
Below is the approval page with original signatures of Major James H. Polve and Lieutenant Colonel John R. Amann. Although Polve's name is typed as 'James A. Polve', it is clearly written as 'James H. Polve'. The only info I could find on Polve was that he wrote a report titled 'Performance Flight Testing' @ 1954 which was written while he was at the 'USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School' at Edwards Air Force Base. This report was published in 1954 by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah.
Amann was Commandant of the 'USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School' from
May 1, 1951-May 25, 1956.
In Slaytons' book, 'DEKE! U.S. MANNED SPACE: FROM MERCURY TO THE SHUTTLE', published in 1994, Slayton states that he arrived at Edwards Air Force Base in June 1955 and graduated from the USAF Experimental Flight Test School in December 1955. He also said that 'The guy in charge of the school was a Major Folvy'. He obviously meant 'Polve'. Another interesting statement by Slayton in his book is that 'In those days we did all our academic work-running all our performance numbers-on little hand calculators or slide rules. Today guys in test pilot school are sitting there with laptops. They can do more real- time calculating in five minutes than we could do in a six month course. Flight test instrumentation was archaic as hell... I suppose it was risky. You didn't know what performance you really had until you got back and looked at the data... We had to lay out a flight plan and say, okay, I think I can go this far this time. If you guessed right you were okay. If you didn't...'.
ABSTRACT
The 'student' mentioned below is Slayton.
FLIGHT LOG
DATA SHEET/GRAPHS
Below are some examples of the aggregate data and report writing done by Slayton.
The graphs were done by Slayton the old fashioned way:
by hand using graph paper, a slide rule and a pencil!
FLIGHT DATA SHEETS
Below are three 'Flight Data Sheets' with Slaytons' handwritten notations.
ACCELERATIONS-20,000 FT.
ACCELERATIONS-30,000 FT.
ACCELERATIONS- 40,000 FT.
CHECK CLIMB
There were some symbols that apparently were not on the typewriters of that era. As you can see on the below typed pages, Slayton had to enter a lot of those by hand. Pages 6 and 7 below have quite a few of Slaytons' handwritten notations.
T-33A
Below is a vintage picture of a T-33A which was included in Slaytons' report. It is not known if this is one of the planes he tested for this report. The tail number of the plane in the picture looks like '9933' which does not correspond to what Slayton records as the serial number or aircraft number of the plane(s) he tested and reported on.
BACK OF T-33A PICTURE