Word: airstreams
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...announced that one of its RB-45s (North American's four-jet light bomber, which ordinarily has a top speed of about 550 m.p.h.) had covered the distance in a cool 13 min. 50 sec. Captain John J. Mackey had accidentally picked up a lift from the jet airstream, the high-velocity wind that zigzags unpredictably through the substratospheric sky (TIME, Oct. 16). His average speed for the flight: 886 m.p.h., a figure which the Air Force modestly admitted was probably a record-at least for that type of plane...
Quickly the plane climbed to more than 20,000 ft. There Pilot Haven opened the plane's bomb bay and lowered into the airstream a shining mass of metal. It hung 5 ft. below the plane, like a stubby cigar. Like a cigar, it began to bum at the tip, and it let out a whine like the wail of 10,000 banshees...
Last week North American Aviation, Inc. announced that it had licked the problem by fitting its four-jet B45 Tornado with new-type bomb-bay doors. Instead of swinging open, they slide into the plane like overhead garage doors. The falling bombs hit a smoothly flowing airstream instead of the uneven eddies stirred up by the old-style doors. Even above 500 m.p.h., all the bombs fall alike, a necessity for good marksmanship...
...plenty of space for a seated pilot behind a reciprocating engine. But jet engines are slimmer and designers have learned to fold tanks and guns into nose and wings. To take full advantage of lower frontal areas, pilots may have to stretch out in the direction of the airstream...
Escape chutes and ejection seats are "safe" for speeds up to 500 m.p.h., but no one thinks that they will be used much at higher speeds. When the average-sized pilot, crouched in his seat, enters a 500 m.p.h. airstream, his body is hit (according to Navy calculations) by a pressure blow of 2,813 lbs. At 600 m.p.h., he gets a blow...