Word: aircrafting
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DIED. Scott Crossfield, 84, civilian aircraft designer and cold war test pilot who in 1953 became the first man to fly at Mach 2, twice the speed of sound--a record that spurred his rival, U.S. Air Force ace Chuck Yeager, to surpass it a month later; in a crash of Crossfield's single-engine Cessna in the mountains north of Atlanta. One of the post--World War II supersonic-jet aviators whom author Tom Wolfe said had "the right stuff," Crossfield dismissed the macho image of his field, saying that for most pilots he knew, the "main interest outside...
...that was locked into place beneath the right wing of an Air Force B-52 bomber. At 8 o'clock sharp the B-52 roared down the runway and lifted. It carried with it Scott Crossfield in the X-15 rocket-plane ? designed to be the first U.S. aircraft to carry man out to the edge of space...
...when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The days and nights that followed molded Rumsfeld as he came of age, especially after his father put his real-estate career on hold to join the Navy and fight in the Pacific. "In World War II there were suicide pilots flying their aircraft into our ships," the Secretary told guests at an awards dinner last year. "Today a new enemy is seeking global power and has flown our own airliners into our buildings on suicide missions...
Rumsfeld was among the first to grasp what others would take months to understand: that threats to America overseas were no longer deterred by tanks, bombers and aircraft carriers. However clean his logic, getting the generals to give up their gadgets was turning out to be much dirtier work. "This is a very large organization," says General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, "and as with any ship, there's a lot of inertia that won't allow you to turn it 10 degrees. You need energetic people to make that happen." But one man was no match...
...give 2008 a try. The winner will be the candidate who comes closest to this model: a politician who refuses to be a "performer," at least in the current sense. Who speaks but doesn't orate. Who never holds a press conference on or in front of an aircraft carrier. Who doesn't assume the public is stupid or uncaring. Who believes in at least one major idea, or program, that has less than 40% support in the polls. Who can tell a joke-at his or her own expense, if possible. Who gets angry, within reason; gets weepy, within...