Word: aircraft
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...DEADLY T-3 AIRCRAFT...
...pilot, I was disappointed in your report on the T-3, the propeller-driven trainer flown by cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy that has killed six people in three crashes [NATION, Jan. 12]. By suggesting that the failure of the plane's single engine has caused the aircraft to fall and corkscrew into the ground, you perpetuate the misunderstanding that flying and airplanes are inherently dangerous. The truth is that a good pilot will almost always walk away uninjured from an engine failure by finding an open space on the ground and gliding the plane to a forced...
What kind of military stupidity allows the top brass to decide the merits of training techniques in a proven inferior aircraft? A plane with 66 engine failures and 119 recommended "fixes" by its English manufacturer is a certain invitation to disaster. Even more asinine is the fact that the people in charge ignored the flight instructors' declarations of danger. Maybe the top brass should have been forced to fly in the questionable T-3. That would have educated or eliminated our faulty decision makers. DANA VICKERY Gardner, Mass...
...flying makes you queasy, you'll be relieved to know that Pathfinder--NASA's ultralight, solar-powered aircraft, that is, not the Mars lander of the same name--isn't taking passengers just yet. But according to a NASA briefing last week, the remote-controlled plane's high-altitude (71,500 ft.), low-speed (15 m.p.h.) flights are perfect for the kind of environmental research now being done by orbiting satellites. Pathfinder's flexible 99-ft. wings, glistening with $1 million worth of solar panels, have been tested only in sunny Hawaii. So the plane carries a backup battery system...
South Korea's crisis is far from over. And the U.S., as it feels its way as the lone superpower, finds that the tools it needs to lead are not aircraft carriers and armored divisions but emergency stabilization funds and better accounting practices. Inside the Clinton Administration, the man working these delicate new levers is Treasury Secretary Rubin. For the past 50 years, private banks like J.P. Morgan had led the way, picking over the wreckage of a remote foreign collapse. In a newer world, where "remote" economies no longer exist and where many more players make many more investments...