Word: aloft
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...faster ones began to glow from atmospheric friction when 84 mi. from earth's surface. At 54 mi. they burned themselves out. Two of the meteors spattered luminescent trains behind them, which Astronomer Olivier's men saw floating 50 to 60 mi. aloft. Wind drove one train upward at an angle of 55 degrees and a speed of 142 m. p. h. Wind drove the other train 90 m. p. h. up 35 degrees. No plane or rocket could maneuver in such mighty drafts...
Significance. Aeronauts began 100 years ago to try to make steam engines fly, because no other motive power existed. The first successful dirigible, flown by Henri Giffard in 1852, was steam-propelled. Ten years before, W. H. Phillips had sent aloft a small model helicopter with a steam engine in it. Langley's first successful flying model, in 1896, was steam driven. Maxim worked on the idea. But no full size airplane flew. And before one did, Charles M. Manly had built a gasoline engine lighter per horsepower than any steam plant produced so far. When it was proven...
...came on duty at midnight he changed the course to west. A half hour later the great ship plunged from its 1,600 ft. altitude. The commander reached for a row of pullcords overhead, yanked at them to release water ballast. Slowly, painfully, the shuddering Akron shouldered her way aloft again. An "all hands on" brought the off-watch from their bunks. Officers, bos'ns' mates, riggers, firemen groped their way along narrow catwalks to their stations...
...southwestern U. S. grew suddenly, hellishly luminescent, just before dawn one day last week. A meteor had passed with the howling roar and ripping draft of a monster express train. The pilots of two mail planes were aloft close enough to the phenomenon to bring precious new information down to scientists...
Weatherman Colton's crash made citizens conscious of a new profession. Before airplanes, kites and balloons took weather recording instruments aloft in out-of-the-way places. But kites require wind, balloons not too much wind; both are unusable in bad weather; both have been scrapped except for one kite-station in Ellendale, N. Dak. In July 1931, Weather Bureau stations in Chicago, Cleveland and Dallas let the first U. S. contracts to aviators for weather observation. Omaha and Atlanta have been added to the list. A weather plane goes up once a week in Fairbanks, Alaska...