Word: backwardly
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Backward, Christian soldiers, roared a British Salvation Army colonel, go ye not to James Bond movies, for the "maimed, tortured people who go screaming through them" are a menace to charity drives and highway safety. Meanwhile, 007 himself, Cinemactor Sean Connery, 34, was raising funds for a newspaper charity by attending the London première of The Yellow RollsRoyce, sporting a beard grown on vacation and his wife, Cinemactress Diane Cilento, 31, who was sporting a white fur coat...
...already demonstrated its airworthiness-but only with its wings in a slow, takeoff position. This was the time to test the wings' ability to move, to sweep backward so that the plane could switch to high-speed flight...
...over Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, Test Pilot Richard L. Johnson began the critical maneuver that is the F-111's reason for being. In the instrument-crammed cockpit, he reached for a novel control: a pistol grip that can be moved backward and forward like a trombone slide. He pushed it forward, and the wings responded by folding backward. He moved them first to 26 degrees of sweep, then 43 degrees, at last to 72 degrees. In this highspeed condition, the F-111 looked like a schoolboy's folded paper dart...
...modest 27,000 ft. and flew at only 450 m.p.h., which is less than one-third of its planned 1,650-m.p.h. speed. But the revolutionary wing mechanism worked perfectly, and the airplane handled easily with wings in all positions. Before landing, Pilot Johnson pulled the trombone control backward. The wings extended again, and the plane touched down lightly at moderate speed. Many more flights will be necessary, but the crucial wing-sweeping maneuver was wholly successful, and it was completed 24 days ahead of official schedule...
...while, pilots and engineers argued about the wing control. One faction held that when the pistol grip was pulled backward, the wings should fold backward in concert. Others insisted that since all pilots are trained to push engine throttles forward when they want more speed, they might get confused at a dangerous moment if they were compelled to pull the wing control backward for the same effect. The second faction won. Now, with a plane that can fly to any place in the world in a single day, F-111 pilots will still be handling controls as familiar and reliable...