Word: aloftness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...unstable that no pilot can react fast enough to keep it from dropping out of the sky. Yet the X-29A flew precisely as planned last Friday in its first test flight from California's Edwards Air Force Base. Pilot Chuck Sewell kept the X-29A aloft at 15,000 ft. for nearly an hour, maintaining a relatively slow speed of 270 m.p.h. His secret: three built-in computers checked all flight-control surfaces 40 times a second, automatically making adjustments to keep the plane airborne. "If I lose all the computers, the airplane self-destructs in two-tenths...
...computer simulation of a detonation of a single-megaton explosion, Physicist Joyce Penner, who heads the laboratory's study of nuclear smoke, found that a column did indeed rise six miles into the sky, but that half the smoke dropped quickly into the troposphere. The 50% that remained aloft, Penner estimated, contained nearly three times the condensation needed to produce rain. This finding suggested that even smoke in the stratosphere, beyond the reaches of normal weather patterns, would create its own storm and fall back to earth...
...going to play the 'come-up' game," says Leonard, holding aloft a picture. "Quid est [What's this]?" he asks. Hands fly up. "Caseus est [It's cheese]," pipes a nine-year-old named Cheryl. "Optime [Super]!" praises Leonard, and calls the proud pupil up front to play teacher with a new picture. After a relay of come-ups, Leonardus leads a Latin sing-along of Rome Is Burning to the tune of Are You Sleeping, Brother John? climaxed by a fire dance with everyone shouting "Flammae, flammae, flammae...
...March to scare the leftist Sandinista government by creating the impression that the Washington-backed rebel effort was more widespread than it was. The airborne handbooks, coated in plastic to make them water-resistant, were among 3,000 printed at CIA headquarters. But only a fraction were ever sent aloft, because the agency was short of money and the balloon blitz had no discernible effect on the Sandinistas...
...legend "R T-M S B-N B-10." But when the letters and number are pronounced, young readers can crack the code: "Our team is bein' beaten." A Martian has descended from a spaceship. The line explains, "N-M-E L-E-N." A doctor holds aloft a test tube and announces, "I F D Q-R!" The whimsical drawings and ingenious punch lines are M-U-S-N from the beginning...