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Michael Adams Sr. was born in Sacramento,
California on May 5, 1930 to
Michael and Georgia Adams, the oldest of two brothers. Michael
graduated from high school in 1948, going on to Sacramento Junior
College, graduating in 1950 with an AA in Forestry. Adams served as a
fighter-bomber pilot during the Korean conflict, followed by 30 months
with the 813th Fighter-Bomber Squadron at England AFB, Louisiana and
six months rotational duty at Chaumont Air Base in France.
Michael entered the U.S. Air Force on November 22, 1950, undergoing
Basic training at Lackland Air Force Base. After Basic, he served with
with the 3501st Pilot Training as a Link Trainer instructor until he
was selected as an Aviation Cadet. He underwent primary training at
Spence, Georgia, October 1951. From Spence he went to Webb AFB, Texas,
for Advanced training where he earned his wings on October 25, 1952 at
Webb AFB, Texas..
After Advanced, it was on to Nellis AFB, Nevada for gunnery school,
where he flew F-80s and F-86s. Upon completion, 1LT Adams was shipped
off to Korea in April of 1953. As 1st Lieutenant, Flight Commander
618th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, Korea, he flew a total of 49 combat
missions.
Returning from Korea in February 1954, Lieutenant Adams served another
three years as a flight commander in fighter squadrons in the U.S. and
France. It was during his tour at the 813th Fighter-Bomber Squadron,
England AFB, Lousiana that Michael and Frieda Beard were married.
In the fall of 1956, Michael entered the University of Oklahoma, as
part of an Air Force career development program for promising officers.
He earned his Aeronautical Engineering degree in 1958. He went on to do
his graduate work in Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Completing these studies, Michael went to work at Chanute
AFB, Illinois as an instructor. During this time he was selected as a
student at the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB.
Adams graduated from Test Pilot School in 1962 as the outstanding pilot
and scholar in his class. For this he was awarded the Honts Trophy. He
was then selected to attend Chuck Yeager’s Aerospace Research Pilot
School, from which he graduated in 1963.
Major Michael Adams' decorations and awards:
Air Medal
Air Force Commendation Medal
Korean Service Medal
United Nations Service Medal
National Defense Service Medal with 1 Bronze Service Star
Air Force Longevity Service Award with 4 Clusters
Air Force Good Conduct Medal
Honts Trophy
Mike Adams receiving the A. B. Honts Trophy given by the USAF
Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB to the outstanding member of each
class for
academic achievement and flying excellence.
THE LOSS OF MAJ. MICHAEL ADAMS IN X-15A-3
#66672
As had happened in some other research
aircraft programs, a fatal accident signaled the end of the X-15
program. On 15 November 1967 at 10:30 a.m., the X-15-3 dropped away
from its B-52 mothership at 45,000 feet near Delamar Dry Lake. At the
controls was veteran Air Force test pilot, Major Michael J. Adams.
Maj. Michael J. Adams, USAF, was launched in X-15 Number 66672 on a
mission to carry out seven different experiments. The flight was
destined for disaster from the point of launch. At launch, the craft's
vibration sensor shut down the engine. On Mike's second try, the engine
ignited - 16 seconds after launch.
Starting his climb under full power, he was soon passing through 85,000
feet. Then an electrical disturbance distracted him and slightly
degraded the control of the aircraft. Having adequate backup controls,
Adams continued on. At 10:33 he reached a peak altitude of 266,000
feet. Major Mike Adams was now America's 27th astronaut.
At this stage of the flight, Major Adams may have been experiencing
vertigo - a condition he had experienced before, and one which was
experienced by many X-15 pilots on climbout. This was a feeling
described as "going straight up" or even "going over backwards" - the
source of more than one altitude undershoot.
In the Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) flight control room, fellow
pilot and mission controller Pete Knight monitored the mission with a
team of engineers. Something was amiss. As the X-15 climbed, Adams
started a planned wing-rocking maneuver so an on-board camera could
scan the horizon. The wing rocking quickly became excessive, by a
factor of two or three. When he concluded the wing-rocking portion of
the climb, the X-15 began a slow, gradual drift in heading; 40 seconds
later, when the craft reached its maximum altitude, it was off heading
by 15°. As the plane came over the top, the drift briefly halted,
with the plane yawed 15° to the right. Then the drift began again;
within 30 seconds, the plane was descending at right angles to the
flight path. At 230,000 feet, encountering rapidly increasing dynamic
pressures, the X-15 entered a Mach 5 spin.
In the flight control room there was no way to monitor heading, so
nobody suspected the true situation that Adams now faced. The
controllers did not know that the plane was yawing, eventually turning
completely around. Telemetry on the High Range included over 400
channels, however did not include the heading of the craft - a
situation that was later corrected. In fact, control advised the pilot
that he was ”a little bit high,” but in ”real good shape.” Just 15
seconds later, Adams radioed that the plane ”seems squirrelly.” At
10:34 came a shattering call: ”I'm in a spin, Pete.” A mission monitor
called out that Adams had, indeed, lost control of the plane. A NASA
test pilot said quietly, ”That boy's in trouble.” Plagued by lack of
heading information, the control room staff saw only large and very
slow pitching and rolling motions. One reaction was ”disbelief; the
feeling that possibly he was overstating the case.” But Adams again
called out, ”I'm in a spin.” As best they could, the ground controllers
sought to get the X-15 straightened out. They knew they had only
seconds left. There was no recommended spin recovery technique for the
plane, and engineers knew nothing about the X-15's supersonic spin
tendencies. The chase pilots, realizing that the X-15 would never make
Rogers Lake, went into afterburner and raced for the emergency lakes,
for Ballarat, for Cuddeback. Adams held the X-15's controls against the
spin, using both the aerodynamic control surfaces and the reaction
controls. Through some combination of pilot technique and basic
aerodynamic stability, the plane recovered from the spin at 118,000
feet and went into a Mach 4.7 dive, inverted, at a dive angle between
40 and 45 degrees.
Adams was in a relatively high altitude dive and had a good chance of
rolling upright, pulling out, and setting up a landing. But now came a
technical problem that spelled the end. The Honeywell adaptive flight
control system began a limit-cycle oscillation just as the plane came
out of the spin, preventing the system's gain changer from reducing
pitch as dynamic pressure increased. The X-15 began a rapid pitching
motion of increasing severity. All the while, the plane shot downward
at 160,000 feet per minute, dynamic pressure increasing intolerably.
High over the desert, it passed abeam of Cuddeback Lake, over the
Searles Valley, over the Pinnacles, narrowing on toward Johannesburg.
As the X-15 neared 65,000 feet, it was speeding downward at Mach 3.93
and experiencing over 15 g vertically, both positive and negative, and
8 g laterally. It broke up into many pieces amid loud sonic rumblings,
striking northeast of Johannesburg. Two hunters heard the noise and saw
the forward fuselage, the largest section, tumbling over a hill. On the
ground, NASA control lost all telemetry at the moment of breakup, but
still called to Adams. A chase pilot spotted dust on Cuddeback, but it
was not the X-15. Then an Air Force pilot, who had been up on a delayed
chase mission and had tagged along on the X-15 flight to see if he
could fill in for an errant chase plane, spotted the main wreckage
northwest of Cuddeback. Mike Adams was dead and the X-15 destroyed.
Adding to this tragedy, Mike's wife and mother were at NASA on the
morning of the flight to monitor the flight from the viewing area
outside the control room. Walter "Whitey" Whiteside recognized that
Mike was in trouble and quickly led Mike's wife and mother from the
control room viewing area to spare them the brutal details as Mike
fought to save his life and the plane. America had suffered its first
and only reentry accident and 66672 would not be destined for a museum.
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