Word: aircraft
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...This is a wonderful place to raise children," says Marion Moriarty, whose grandfather built the family's seven-bedroom English-style country house 70 years ago on a stretch of land just 100 ft. from the sea. Unimpressed by now with the daily show of aircraft carriers and nuclear subs cruising by the island, the four Moriarty kids prefer exploring secret trails in local forest preserves, watching the bald eagles or scouring nearby waters for killer whales and schools of frolicking dolphins...
...Charles Lindbergh a reckless flyer who should have been grounded for his own good? Or was he a skilled pilot who prevailed, with a bit of his famed luck, over the hazards of poor aircraft and sloppy maintenance of the 1920s? These questions are raised in an intriguing exchange of letters between Lindy and William P. MacCracken Jr., the first head of the Commerce Department's former aeronautics branch. The letters, written in 1968, have only recently been disclosed by MacCracken's widow (he died in 1969 and Lindbergh...
Lindbergh readily agreed with MacCracken that he had to parachute from planes no fewer than four times in his barnstorming and mail-piloting days before his solo flight to Paris in 1927. But he explained to MacCracken that he had been flying Army salvage aircraft with "rotting longerons, rusting wires and fittings, badly torn fabric, etc." Once, he wrote, "my rusted rudderbar post broke while I was instructing a student during a low-altitude turn in an OX5 Standard." Another time, "my wooden propeller threw its sheet-metal tipping on a southbound mail flight from Chicago." Again, "my DH throttle...
...Fortunately, as the first tense days came and went, there were no incidents more serious than flight delays of up to 20 minutes caused by Lufthansa's preboarding passenger inspections. Later, a second letter, delivered to news agencies in Paris, announced that "we will not hijack any more aircraft," but repeated the threat to "blow up" airplanes when "capitalist profiteers and lackeys" are aboard. "We will also hit them," the letter said, "in their homes, cafés, clubs, movies, at gala occasions and in their financial fortresses...
DIED. Leonard Sinclair Hobbs, 80, aviation engineer who developed the powerful J57 jet engine; of a stroke; in Hartford, Conn. Hobbs, who designed the carburetor for Charles Lindbergh's The Spirit of St. Louis, joined Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in 1927. As their chief engineer, he developed the R-2800 Double Wasp workhorse engine of World War II planes...