Word: column
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Sirs: Will TIME kindly report the greatest flight- as to number in air at one time-of airplanes on record? See TIME, p. 12, issue of May 19, third column, last sentence: "Never before had so large a fleet of planes flown so far or so well together." Correct perhaps as to "so far" and "so well together" but not as to number. While stationed at Nixville, near Verdun, late in 1918 (September or October, I believe), many American and Allied soldiers including the 5th U. S. Division and others in battle around Montfaucon enjoyed the thrill that came from...
Sailors cherish an ancient notion-a de-lusion-that, if a ship cannot escape a waterspout by moving out of its path, a shot fired into the column of water will cause it to collapse. Science has no record of this having actually been done, for the good reason that no cannon projectile (unless perhaps a large explosive shell timed exactly) would be big enough to disrupt the enormous vacuum which supports the water column...
...atmosphere. A warm, damp air layer close to land or sea attempts to rise through a layer of cool, dry air. The warm air literally breaks a hole in the cooler air, rushes upward. Passing through the hole it assumes a whirling motion. The centrifugal force of the column develops a partial vacuum on the inside...
...dancing column of the waterspout, often a mile high, 200 ft. in diameter, carries a great volume of water which it sucks from the sea. Terrifying to seamen by virtue of the fact that the column whirls at the rate of 150 m. p. h., these twisters are seldom long lived. Tornadoes over land last longer, travel from 30 to 50 mi. Greatest in the U. S. was that of 1925 which stretched a ribbon of destruction across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana. In its wake were 695 dead and $16.500,000 worth of tangled, destroyed property.* Instead of transporting water, tornadoes...
...engines were warmed up. Miss England II was doing more than 101 m. p. h. on her third run when she swerved suddenly. The whole side of the thin white flying shell seemed to give way. While the roar of the engines still echoed across the lake, a column of flame, smoke, foam, water shot up and the boat burrowed under. It came up slowly, upside down...