Before powered flights were undertaken, a series of glide flights were conducted. On May 10, 1967, the sixteenth and last glide flight ended in disaster as the vehicle slammed into the lake bed on landing. With test pilot
Bruce Peterson at the controls, the M2-F2 suffered a
pilot induced oscillation (PIO) as it neared the lake bed. At the core of this problem was that the wings of the M2-F2 (essentially the body of the aircraft) produced considerably less roll authority than most aircraft. This resulted in less force available to the pilot to control the aircraft in roll. The vehicle rolled from side to side in flight as he tried to bring it under control. Peterson recovered, but then observed a rescue helicopter that seemed to pose a collision threat. Distracted, Peterson drifted in a crosswind to an unmarked area of the lake bed where it was very difficult to judge the height over the ground because of a lack of guidance (the markers provided on the lake bed runway). Peterson fired the landing rockets to provide additional lift, but he hit the lake bed before the
landing gear was fully down and locked. The M2-F2 rolled over six times, coming to rest upside down. Pulled from the vehicle by Jay King and Joseph Huxman, Peterson was rushed to the base hospital, transferred to the
March Air Force Base Hospital and then the
UCLA Hospital. He recovered but lost vision in his right
eye due to a
staphylococcal infection. Portions of M2-F2 footage including Peterson's spectacular crash landing were used for the 1973 television series
The Six Million Dollar Man though some shots during the opening credits of the series showed the later
HL-10 model, during release from its carrier plane, a modified
B-52. Four pilots flew the M2-F2 on its 16 glide flights. They were
Milton O. Thompson (five flights),
Bruce Peterson (three flights), Don Sorlie (three flights) and
Jerry Gentry (five flights).
NASA pilots and
researchers realized the M2-F2 had lateral control problems, even though it had a stability augmentation control system. When the M2-F2 was rebuilt at Dryden and redesignated the
M2-F3, it was modified with an additional third vertical
fin—centered between the tip fins to improve control characteristics. The M2-F2/F3 was the first of the heavyweight, entry-configuration lifting bodies. Its successful development as a research test vehicle answered many of the generic questions about these vehicles. ==M2-F2 flights==