bionic beginnings

by rod rehn

The aircraft seen crashing in the opening sequence of The Six Million Dollar Man was an M2-F2, a "flying body configuration" built by Northrup. The audio is from a crash that occurred on May 10, 1967, at Edwards Air Force base in California. The test pilot, Bruce Peterson, hit the ground at 250 mph, tumbling six times. He lost use of his right eye and had to stop flying, ending his career. Understandably, Peterson has said that he hated reliving his accident, week after week, courtesy of Steve Austin.

"It looks good at NASA One." Flight Com
"Roger." B-52 Pilot
"BCS Arm switch is on." B-52 Pilot
"Okay, Victor." Flight Com
"Landing Rocket Arm switch is on." B-52 Pilot
"Here comes the throttle." B-52 Pilot
"Circuit breakers in." B-52 Pilot
"We have separation." Steve
"Roger." SR-71 pilot
"Inboard and outboards are on." B-52 Pilot
"I'm comin' forward with the side stick." B-52 Pilot
"Looks good." Flight Com
"Ah, Roger." B-52 Pilot
"I've got a blow-out in damper three!" Steve
"Get your pitch to zero." SR-71 pilot
"Pitch is out! I can't hold altitude!" Steve
"Correction, Alpha Hold is off. . . Threat selector is emergency!" B-52 Pilot
"Flight Con! I can't hold it! She's breaking up, she's break—" Steve

Narrator (Harve Bennett): "Steve Austin. Astronaut. A man barely alive."

Oscar Goldman: "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better ... stronger ... faster."

Visitor Feedback

From Getadell:
In the opening sequence, I always thought he said "I'm coming port with the sidestick."

From John Sullivan:
I have a question or two about "In the beginning..." The transcript is a good try at understanding UHF jibberish; the words are hard to catch. But I secured a transcript from NASA that is closer to the truth.
Note: Lifting Body (not Flying Body) aircraft flown at NASA were "controlled" from a NASA trailer called NASA One. In the transcript below, "Oscar" refers to a famous lookout tower at Edwards Air Force Base, and was probably used as a call sign in the theatrics for Steve Austin. The NASA One trailer, for the purpose of Universal Studios, would probably have included the call sign. "Victor" as the call sign for the B-52. There was also a "NASA 9" call sign in the original pilot which would equate to "Crash and Salvage."
The footage prior to "separation" as The Six Million Dollar Man was clicked in was actually altered film of a huge (weren't they all then?) mainframe computer. The actual "separation" was from the wing camera of B-52 #008 (that thing's still in use today) which actually was a slow-motion drop of the HL-10.

"Oscar to NASA One." Oscar
"Roger." NASA One
"VP is armed switch is on." Victor
"Okay, Victor." Oscar
"Lighting Rods are armed switch is on. Here comes the starter, circuit breakers in." Victor
"We have separation." Victor [This is actually Lee Major's voice, as is the next one.]
"Roger." Oscar
"Inboard and outboards are on. Come a-port with the sidestick." NASA One
"Oscar?" Oscar
"Uh, Roger." NASA One
"I've got a blowout — vapor three!" Oscar
"Get your pitch to zero." NASA One
"Pitch is out — I can't hold altitude." Oscar
"Direction alpha hold is off — try trajectory emergency." NASA One [this may be a reference to the emergency rockets]
"Flight Comm! I can't hold it! She's breaking up, she's break..." Oscar

At the point of "the blowout," the footage from the actual crash is inserted. I don't know where the approach from Steve's venue that appears in later episodes came from, but it wasn't from footage of Bruce Peterson's crash. And none of the transcript from the opening credits came from that crash — it was all done in a sound studio — and wasn't that important. Some actual audio transcript from Peterson's flight actually ended up in the pilot.
The National Air And Space Museum puts out a great magazine called Air &
Space and it once listed the crashes at Dryden. Looks like the M2-F2 crash took place far short of the lakebed. According to what I've been able to figure, in what is called Flight 16, the M2-F2 was on a "fuel-less" mission - in fact the XLR-11 rockets hadn't even been installed. The vehicle dropped and was making a glide to the lakebed runway when the pilot (Peterson) thought that a "marker" helicopter was in his way. This helicopter was stationed to provide an altitude reference for Peterson to make his "flare" to pitch-up. Peterson believed that the altitude was in the wrong place, and in any event, he believed it was in his way. So he made an intentional divert, which cost him airspeed.
The only way to land a wingless lifting body without power is to be at a certain airspeed, and Peterson knew he would have to head straight down to pick up the speed necessary to make his flare. But in doing so, the craft went into what is called a PIO — a pilot-induced oscillation — which is particularly troublesome for a craft without stabilizing wings. He spent several seconds recovering from the rolling motion you see in the opening credits. He regained the control of his craft, but after doing so, he was far too low to make any kind of landing on the marked runway. Very close to the ground, he extended the landing gear, and they were still extending when he crashed.
I do applaud the producers of the pilot, and think that the movie of the
week series of the Six Million Dollar Man was outstanding. I agree that as time went on, the show got so bad that it was a blessing it got cancelled. It was certainly doomed when Harve Bennett left and some guy named Johnson took over.
A long time ago, I read Martin Caidin's book Cyborg, which was the basis of the series. The book was different from the pilot, although in many ways it would have been a better pilot had more of Caidin's book been included. The crash sequence of the test plane in the pilot included a full M2 flight — that is, separation from the B-52, ascent via rocket power to the edge of space, heated re-entry, and the eventual crash. Caidin then went on to portray a much more realistic man challenged by the loss of limbs, replaced by artificial limbs. The story was an early version of "Castaway" where Steve Austin was sent to the Middle East to recover an advanced, top-of-the-line, prototype MIG. He met a beautiful woman, brought her out, and after crashing a second time, found that he had to be most resourceful (even to the point of saving his dehydrated body by using urine to irrigatre a dry, dying mouth) to save himself. Once he (Steve Austin) regained the will to live, and once she had lost hope, Steve Austin finally leaped across the desert, using footprints scattered 15 feet apart, to bring her to safety.
By the way, Bruce Peterson returned to flight status after the crash. Not only that, he became director of the Safety office at Dryden for many years, and recently retired. I don't agree that he got sick of footage of his crash on television — he probably got more sick of how Universal turned his accident into a cartoon. but Bruce is a great guy, and took the whole thing in stride. I've posted a tribute to him and Bill Dana on my web site. I also have posted a photo of the HL-10, which became a prop for the series, and Peterson shortly before the crash that changed his life.

From Phil:

"Correction, Alpha Hold is off. . . Turn selectors . . . Emergency!"

should read:

"Correction, alpha hold is off, threat select is emergency"

"Flight Com! I can't hold it! She's breaking up, she's break—"

should read:

"Flight Con..."

(as in Flight Control)

"Lining Rocket Arm switch is on."

should be:

"Landing Rocket Arm switch is on."