Word: cecil
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Sometimes known as "Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent" because of early technical problems and its droopy, attenuated profile, the 2,000-plus-m.p.h., 225-ton plane was originally intended to be an intercontinental bomber but was later rejected for that role. Instead, only two were built, and they have served as an invaluable flying test bed for the myriad technical problems involved in developing a supersonic transport. The second and better-equipped of the two Valkyries also tested to the utmost the nerve and ingenuity of its pilots on a recent routine flight...
...blinking on the control panel, Alvin White, 47, North American Aviation's chief test pilot in the West, and his copilot, Air Force Colonel Joseph Cotton, 44, knew something was amiss with their landing gear. Pursuit jets monitoring the flight reported that one of the two tires on Cecil's forward gear had blown and the entire assembly was jammed against the partly open doors of the wheel cavity. A computer governing the gear's operation had malfunctioned, causing the doors to start closing before the gear had fully retracted. One door had knifed into a tire...
Sweating Hands. The first problem for Cotton was to find the one minute area for manipulation among thousands of miles of wire and innumerable relay points. For 75 minutes, while White piloted the plane, Cotton crawled back and forth between Cecil's innards and the cockpit, where he could get guidance from the ground. He was armed with the flashlight, screw driver and pliers that he always carries with him when flying. Finally he thought he had located the right relay switch. Taking a dime-store binder clip that he uses to hold papers in his documents case, Cotton...
...gear had locked the brakes on the main wheels, freezing them. White had no choice but to go through with the landing. "It was an experience we wouldn't have missed for worlds," said White, "and one we wouldn't like to go through again." As for Cecil, the old serpent will be up to its old tricks again this week...
...best asset: savvy in world finance. As a master strategist of Reynolds Metals' 1958 battle for control of British Aluminium, Warburg fought most of the British banking Establishment-and won. His S. G. Warburg & Co. also plotted most of the press takeovers by both Lord Thomson and Cecil King, helped Chrysler buy into Rootes Motors, arranged financing for Italy's autostrada, managed the first U.S. corporate bond issue in Europe, for Socony Mobil last year...