Word: air
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Undetected by hostile radarscopes, a flock of Blackbirds began flying at 85,000 ft. over the Caribbean last week, their sooty titanium skins glowing cherry red from air friction as they hit top speeds in excess of 2,000 m.p.h. The planes were Lockheed's needle-nosed SR-71s on strategic reconnaissance missions that President Carter has ordered to monitor Soviet military activity in Cuba...
Stationed primarily at Beale Air Force Base in California, the SR-71s last flew over Cuba in November 1978 to help determine whether Havana's Soviet-supplied MiG-23 fighters had a nuclear capability. The answer: no. U.S. strategic satellites are also used for surveillance. But when their vision is obscured by cloud cover, the job is given to SR-71s, which have cloud-penetrating infrared sensors and cameras that can take pictures at a scanning rate of 100,000 sq. mi. per hr., making it possible to monitor military targets anywhere in the world. Most important...
Moscow has been so concerned about the effectiveness of the SR-71s that it has repeatedly made attempts to shoot the planes down over Eastern Europe, North Korea and the Middle East with surface-to-air missiles. They have never made a single kill, but that could change. Entering the Soviet arms inventory is a new SAM called Gammon that the U.S. Air Force estimates has the capability of catching up with an SR-71. A major concern of U.S. defense authorities: if the Gammon is shipped to Havana, it could be bye-bye, Blackbird, over Cuba...
...doubt and worry," he admitted on national television. Even as he spoke, that discontent was being aggravated by new government austerity bites: a punishing jump of a full percentage point in employees' social security contributions and increases in the government-controlled prices of items ranging from rail and air tickets to cigarettes and gasoline (to $2.75 per gal.). Charged Georges Séguy, head of the Communist-dominated C.G.T. union: "This is not austerity, it's plunder...
Innovation means more than just new air-blown popcorn poppers or home computer games for a society already overrun with gadgets. America's dismal economic record over the past decade largely reflects the decline of research and new product development. Growth in productivity, which measures a worker's output per hour, depends upon new machines and industrial processes that help the worker produce more. While U.S. productivity increased at a rate of 3.1% annually from 1955 to 1965, it increased at only 2.3% from 1965 to 1973. So far this year, productivity has been declining at an annual...