Word: ballooned
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Into Hellfire. Demoralized by these tactics-"Our best weapon," said one Israeli, "was sheer effrontery"-the bulk of the Egyptian army in Sinai collapsed like a pricked balloon. "The first night of operations," Ben-Gurion told the Knesset, "we took Kuntilla after twenty minutes of resistance, Ras el Naqb near Elath after a brief engagement and Quseima after forty-five minutes . . ." Only once, at the crucial road junction of Abu Aweigila on the Jerusalem-Ismailia highway, did Egyptian armor and artillery succeed in stalling the Israeli advance (TIME, Nov. 12). Tough Moshe Dayan, dashing about Sinai in a command...
...Navy last week broke the world balloon-altitude record long held by the Army,* but it did not do the job with unruffled dignity. Its helium-filled balloon, made of plastic film, and 128 ft. in diameter, rose without trouble from the same bowl-like depression near Rapid City, S. Dak. that the Army's record-setting flight used in 1935. Far below its partly expanded bag hung a spherical aluminum gondola stuffed with scientific apparatus. Inside were Lieut. Commanders Malcolm D. Ross and Morton L. Lewis, wearing man-from-Mars pressure suits and festooned with instruments to measure...
...balloon rose rapidly, glinting in the sun. At 56,400 ft., Commander Lewis reported that he and Commander Ross were having coffee, a prime necessity of Navy men. Somewhat later he remarked that the sky was clear and dark blue-black. The balloon continued to climb. In two hours and 50 minutes it passed the Army's altitude record (72,395 ft.) and reached...
Everything so far had gone well. Ross and Lewis dropped the balloon intentionally to 75,000 ft. and started to make the observations that were the purpose of the flight. Then the trouble started...
...gondola began to spin crazily, 14 miles above the earth, and the great gasbag would not stop descending. Apparently a malfunctioning valve on the balloon had begun to release helium. The men radioed that the balloon was out of control. They dumped all the ballast and strapped themselves to the gondola's seats. "We are calm, cool and collected," they radioed. "We think we'll stay with the balloon as long...