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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven. That's a good question. I wish I knew, too. These errors have been off and on all during the flight. I have caged and recaged the gyros, caged and uncaged the gyros. I'm back in orbit attitude now but it is not, the attitude indicators are showing orbit attitude but it's not. By looking out at the horizon, I am about 20° right in roll and 20° too much on pitch down. I'm down to about probably 55° down in pitch by visual observation and about 20° right in roll. Yaw appears to be holding okay now. Over.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven, approaching sunset.
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Comm Tech
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Friendship Seven, Friendship Seven, this is Zanzibar Com Tech transmitting on HF UHF. Please acknowledge on HF. Over.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven recording. A lot of dirt on the windows from the retrofire and lot of stuff on here looks like, ah, we might have smashed some bugs even on the way up off the pad. Looks like blood on the outside of the window, maybe. It makes it real, very difficult to observe anything when they get around on the sun side.
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John Glenn
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Friendship Seven. The sun is going down again now. Coming off automatic in yaw, and yawing a little bit to the left to observe it.
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John Glenn
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The way the horizon looks is a very orange band. Just as the sun goes down and extends way off either side, probably 45° each side of the sun, comes up into a lighter yellow, then a very deep blue, then a very light blue, on up to the black of the sky.
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John Glenn
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Once again I can see lightning flashing under me, very clearly.
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Comm Tech
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Friendship Seven, Friendship Seven, this is Zanzibar Com Tech, transmitting on HF UHF. Please acknowledge on HF. Over.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven. I took the capsule off of automatic in yaw only to go left to look at the sunset. It's back on automatic at present time in all three axes; I'm backing it up with manual. Over.
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CAPCOM
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Roger, Friendship Seven, understand you're in automatic control in all three axes, backing up with manual. Is this affirmative. Over.
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John Glenn
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There's quite a big storm area under me. It must extend for, I see lightning flashes, as far, way off on the horizon to the right. I also have them almost directly under me here. They show up very brilliantly here on the dark side at night. They're just like firecrackers going off. Over.
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John Glenn
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Roger. This is Friendship Seven. Fuel is 60-55 [percent], oxygen is 60-92 [percent], Amps are 22. Over.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven at 3 plus 42. We should be just about over Johannesburg, I cannot see anything of southern Africa on this pass. Over.
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John Glenn
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Zanzibar Cap Com, Friendship Seven on HF. Can see long streaky clouds down below as we, going off to my right up into sort of a general weather pattern. That's 3 plus 44.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven. An observation on control system operation: It appears that whenever I go off on manual, or fly-by-wire and maneuver for any lengthy period of time, that somehow we induce considerably, considerable errors into the gyro system. I come up with all kinds of attitudes. That time for instance, when I yawed around 180°, and held for a little while, and came back again, I had errors of 30° in roll, 35 [degrees] in yaw and plus 40 [degrees] in pitch.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven. Several times I have felt that I had a partially stuck thruster or one that was just partly operating in pitch down and just then again I had a pitch up rate going and all at once I felt a down thrust and it pitched down on me. Again there, it repeated again that time, so I think I have a stuck pitch thruster occasionally.
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Comm Tech
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Friendship Seven, this is Indian Com Tech. I read you very weak, very weak, very garbled. Am turning over to Cap Com on UHF. Over.
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John Glenn
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Roger. Friendship Seven. Fuel is 60 45 [percent], oxygen is 60 92 [percent], amps 23. Over.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven. I'm on ASCS but it is operating very erratically. I'm backing it up with manual at the present time. I'm trying to get it set up so it will be in a decent ASCS attitude for retrofire. Over.
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John Glenn
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This is Friendship Seven. I can control it manually. I'll back it up manually and take over if I need to. Over.
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CAPCOM
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Friendship Seven, this is Indian Cap Com. I have your retrosequence times. Are you prepared to copy? Over.
Spoken on Feb. 20, 1962, 6:23 p.m. UTC (62 years, 9 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet