Word: b29
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...Boeing Airplane Co. is famed around the world as the nest which hatched the Flying Fortress and the B29. But citizens of its home town, Seattle, think of it in more practical terms-it is their biggest payroll and a financial well which waters the city and a great part of the country around it. This summer, with a postwar peak of 26,000 employees working on B-50s, on doubledecked Strato-cruisers and on sub assemblies for its jet-powered B-47, it was supporting one in seven families in Seattle...
...Chuck climbed aboard the B29. He already knew what the X-1 would do below Mach 1 (the speed of sound). He had flown it many times, working it up gradually toward the critical speed. The rocket plane handled beautifully, both when flying under rocket power and when gliding down so quietly that Chuck could hear the clock ticking on the instrument panel. After each landing, Captain Jackie L. Ridley, Muroc flight test engineer, analyzed the records of the X-1's instruments. On the whole, they were encouraging. But no one was sure what would happen...
Cardenas called the last warning to all radio listeners: "B29 eight zero zero to NACA radar, Muroc Tower, F-80 chase aircraft. One minute warning...
Chuck knew now that the B-29 was in a flat power glide to increase its speed to 240 m.p.h., minimum flying speed of the loaded X-1. "B29 eight zero zero," chanted Major Cardenas, "30 seconds to drop time...
...Piece. Silently and smoothly the X-1 cut away from the B29. For an instant it drove forward and downward. Then Chuck turned on the nitrogen pressure and fired the lox and alcohol in one of the rocket chambers. A spurt of white dots (visible shock waves) spurted out behind and grew into a long plumelike "contrail" (condensed water vapor...