Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 201
controller movements after the main chute. I can’t vouch for it. The
exact times of these sequences I do not recall at this point but we can
cross-check again. Altitude-wise, the drogue and main came out right on
the money, as far as indicated altitude was concerned.
28. “I put the transmission through that I was okay prior to impact. I
was able to look out and see the water, with the capsule swinging back
and forth. It was not uncomfortable at all. As a matter of fact I felt no
uncomfortable physiological sensations, really, at any point during the
flight. Excited, yes, but nothing uncomfortable at all. Prior to impact, I
had removed my knee straps; I had released my face plate seal bottle and
had removed the exhaust hose from the helmet. Back to the impact now
– the impact itself was as expected. It was a jolt but not uncomfortable.
The capsule went over on its right-hand side, down pretty close to the
water, and of course stayed at about 60° off the vertical. I reached down
and flipped the ‘Rescue Aids’ switch at this time to jettison the reserve
chute and to eject the HF antenna although I did leave my transmit switch
in the UHF position. At this point, I could look out the left window and
tell the dye marker package was working properly. The right window
was still under water. I began looking around for any indication of water
inside but did not find any. I had broken my helmet at the neck ring seal
at this point, and I did no transmitting here. I left the Switch on R/T
because I didn’t want any discharge from the UHF antenna.
29. “The capsule righted itself slowly to a near vertical position, though
I thought myself ‘It is taking an awfully long time to get up there,’ but it
did get up there, and about the time it did get up [page A29-31] there, I
started to relax a little bit and started to read off my instruments. I had
made a report to CARDFILE 23 after impact over UHF that I was indeed
all right, and it was relayed back to the Cape. Then, getting back to the
point where the capsule was close to the vertical, I was going to get a readoff
of the instruments at this time prior to shutting down the power. I got
the main bus voltage and current, and I got a call from the helicopter and
thought that communicating with him was much more important. So I
did. I communicated with him and established contact with the chopper.
I am not sure he heard me at first, but I was able to get through to him
that I would be coming out as soon as he lifted the door clear of the
water. In the meantime, I experienced very little difficulty in getting the
cable from the door around the manual controller handle and tightened
up so that when I called the helo and told him I was ready to come out
and he verified that he was pulling me up and I told him I was powering
down and disconnecting communications. The door was ready to go off.
I disconnected the biomedical packs. I undid my lapbelt, disconnected
the communications lead, and opened the door and very easily worked
my way up into a sitting position on the door sill. Just prior to doing this,
I took my helmet off and laid it over in the position in the – as a matter of
fact, I put it over the hand controller.
30. “The helo was right there. I waited before grabbing the ‘horse-collar’
for a few minutes because I hadn’t seen it hit the water. They dropped