Being a hybrid of 2 separate aircraft initially caused some unforeseen problems, most noticably with the aircraft's geometry. During the first sixteen flights for the Air Force, these issues were addressed and resolved by a team of pilots and engineers led by William Campbell (LtGen-Ret). He recalls:
" 981 took a long time to pass the acceptance testing at Edwards because the inlets were acting so unusually. We had more than 10 unstarts on several flights and by-pass doors and spike positions were hardly ever in synch.
"I had Palmdale install a sideslip (Beta) indicator in the front cockpit because the aircraft seemed to be out of rig. Once installed, with indications of zero sideslip, the rudders needed to be trimmed out of the streamlined position and the inlets were still acting up. For the next flight, I asked to have a yaw string (made out of Nomex) placed ahead of the cockpit.
"On that mission, the yaw string was centered when the Beta indicator showed a 4 degree yaw and the rudders were then in streamlined trim. However, the inlets were still not matched in position. To determine what was wrong, Palmdale finally determined that the pitot boom was out of alignment in yaw by 4 degrees and thus feeding bad information to the inlet computers. Once they straightened the boom, 981 flew normally and we delivered the aircraft to Beale."
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By the time 981 was delivered to Beale on March 9, 1970, she flew just like the B model. The "Double Eagle" flight of 7 October 1969 was a completely normal flight apart from two minor unstarts (which were themselves completely normal before DAFICS came along). The only major difference was that the C model only had 5 fuel tanks, whereas the B's had six, so refueling was a slightly different procedure.
The flight crews for 981's first 20 USAF flights were:
| Date |
Flight # |
Crew |
| 8 May 1969 |
81-05-448 |
Bill Skliar/Dameron Spruill |
| 16 May 1969 |
81-06-449 |
Bill Skliar/Dameron Spruill |
| 25 July 1969 |
81-07-461 |
William Campbell/Joe Rogers |
| 1 August 1969 |
81-08-463 |
William Campbell/Joe Rogers |
| 5 August 1969 |
81-09-465 |
Joe Rogers/Revedy Allender |
| 7 August 1969 |
81-10-466 |
Alton Slay/Joe Rogers |
| 12 August 1969 |
81-11-468 |
William Campbell/John Storrie |
| 19 August 1969 |
81-12-469 |
John Storrie/William Campbell |
| 26 August 1969 |
81-13-470 |
Ted Moeller/William Campbell |
| 28 August 1969 |
81-14-471 |
Richard Gerard/William Campbell |
| 3 September 1969 |
81-15-472 |
Joe Rogers/William Campbell |
| 4 September 1969 |
81-16-474 |
William Campbell/Richard Gerard |
| 2 October 1969 |
81-17-480 |
William Campbell/Slip Slater |
| 7 October 1969 |
81-18-483 |
Joe Rogers/Slip Slater ("Double Eagle" flight) |
| 15 October 1969 |
81-19-485 |
William Campbell/E.L. Pyne |
| 24 October 1969 |
81-20-488 |
Joe Rogers/William Campbell |
| 2 December 1969 |
81-21-489 |
William Campbell/Joe Rogers |
| 4 March 1970 |
81-23-499 |
Fitz Fulton (SP)/William Campbell (IP) |
| 9 March 1970 |
81-24-500 |
William Campbell/Red McNeer (delivery to Beale) |
Flight 81-10-466, Gen. Alton Slay receives his Mach 3+ certificate with Joe Rogers on August 7, 1969 - Lockheed photo via Tony Landis
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Flight 81-23-499, Dick Miller congratulates Fitz Fulton after receiving his Mach 3+ check ride from his instructor William Campbell on March 4, 1970 - USAF photo via Fred Carmody
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