Word: aircrafting
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...scramjet?as different from a jet engine as a rocket was from the steam engine?and this will be its first flight. If all goes to plan, it should smash every world airplane record. It will make the fastest aircraft, the rocket-powered X-15 (Mach 6.7), look turgid, and leave the fastest jet, the SR-71 Blackbird (Mach 3.2), in its stratospheric dust. Says Vince Rausch, director of the Hyper-X project: "It's the future. We're convinced of that. What we've not done yet is demonstrate to the people it's real. And that's what...
...believe that the Jiang's absence from Beijing is giving greater weight to statements emanating from the military, which is taking a harder line in part because of its own embarrassment at losing a pilot and a plane and then apparently being taken by surprise when the stricken U.S. aircraft arrived in Hainan. In some quarters of the Chinese military, the option has been raised of putting the U.S. personnel on trial, an intolerable option for Washington which would raise the pressure for some form of diplomatic retaliation...
...While the EP-3 is an old plane, a model that began flying in 1969, its electronic guts are up-to-the-minute. No EP-3E has ever been shot down or captured, even though the "flying pig," as it is called, is a long-range, slow-flying unarmed aircraft. "The most important thing to the Chinese on that airplane was the data we had collected earlier that day," says Norman Polmar, an independent Navy expert. "That would tell them which of their systems is vulnerable to interception - are we able to intercept telephone conversations from Chinese naval headquarters...
...area, the Chinese pilots had become more aggressive. "Sometimes they're so close you can see their faces," David Cecka, Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class onboard the downed plane, had told his mother. It got so bad that U.S. officials complained. "We went to the Chinese and said, 'Your aircraft are not intercepting in a professional manner. There is a safety issue here,'" recalls Admiral Dennis Blair, head of the U.S. Pacific Command. "It's not normal practice to play bumper cars...
...designed to sound firm but not threatening. The White House had decided not to attack the Chinese pilot for hotdogging near the U.S. plane, and instead called the collision an "accident." "Our priorities are the prompt and safe return of the crew," Bush said, "and the return of the aircraft without further damaging or tampering...