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During the HUD installation at Palmdale, a window W4 was badly scratched. This condition was reluctantly accepted for flight. At low sun angles, the scratch was very noticeable. During the approach to landing, the scratch was found to be distracting to the PLT in monitoring the HUD and landing. This scratch should be polished out when practical. 

Training (underlined bold)
SMS
Ascent (underlined). Previous crews have commented on the excellence of the SMS in training for dynamic flight, and the 41-D crew concurs. An irritant throughout our training, however, was the persistent problems with the MPS model in the SMS. In the opinion of the 41-D crew, the MPS model represents significant negative training. The problems included but were not limited to:
a. Chamber pressure on the gauges never accurately reflected stuck throttles. The SMS displays commanded Pc rather than actual
b. Spurious command path fail indications were common.
c. Engine controller failures gave electric lock-up indications.
d. Certain engine shutdown sequences would freeze Pc (greater than) 30, which would affect MECO confirmed indication.
e. MECO confirmed would randomly not be a set post-engine shutdown.

In this report we reiterate the position we held during the training that fixing the MPS model should have highest priority. Partly as a result of the inadequacies of the simulator, MS 2 used initiation of the transdap (DAP panel lights in MM 103) as indication of MECO confirmed and trained to make a "MECO confirmed" call to the PLT. We recommend this technique to other crews.

We noticed other SMS discrepancies which are lower priorities but worthy of mention. The ET Door model does not accurately model the indications on panel R1 talkbacks. We found that the only way to get proper feedback was to initiate ET Door closure using SPEC 51. Second the new dp/dt transducer in the Orbitor eliminated the klaxon on ascent due to cabin expansion. It is our belief that this nuisance alarm should be removed from the ascent model. Third, the Evap Out Temp never got as high as it does in the SMS. We saw only about 70 (degrees), and it was also our observation that the FES had a longer reponse time to decrease the temperature than is modeled in the SMS. We do not advocate changing anything in the thermal model int he simulator as the indications we saw could have been unqiue to our vehicles or our flight, although it will be interesting to watch the behavior of these readings on subsequent flights. Finally, one item which has been briefed before but is still not well modeled is the significant -Z component to the ascent acceleration. All crews should take care to be sure each individual is tightly strapped down into the seat prelaunch.

Satellite Deployment (underlined). The SMS and the models if the PAM, HS 376 spacecraft, and SYNCOM were excellent for preparing the crew for the deployment tasks. Although it was taken for granted that the crew was trained in PAM