Word: erful
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Along the way, the instruments continuously collected data on atmospheric gases, airborne particles and solar radiation high above the frozen continent. Meantime, parallel flights took off from Ibanez to gather additional atmospheric data at nearly twice the altitude. Manned by a lone pilot, a Lockheed ER-2, the research version of the high-altitude U-2 spy plane, made twelve sorties into the lower stratosphere, cruising at nearly 70,000 ft., or more than 13 miles, for six hours at a time...
From preflight preparation to landing, piloting NASA's specially equipped ER- 2 high-altitude research aircraft is not for the fainthearted. The three pilots who flew the twelve solo missions through the Antarctic ozone hole found the task grueling. An hour before zooming into the stratosphere, each had to don a bright orange pressure suit and begin breathing pure oxygen to remove nitrogen from the blood and tissues, thus preventing the bends, which can result from rapid reductions in air pressure. Once airborne, "you have to have patience," says Pilot Ron Williams, who flew the first mission. "You're strapped...
Although the pilots had been briefed by meteorologists on what to expect, they still found conditions aloft astonishingly harsh. Accustomed to clear, broad vistas at high altitudes, the pilots -- who took the ER-2 as high as 68,000 ft. -- were startled to encounter layers of translucent mist composed of tiny ice particles. "I went into clouds at 61,000 ft., and I didn't come out the whole time," says Williams of the first flight. Another surprise: temperatures did not warm when the plane soared into the stratosphere. Instead, they plummeted to -130 degreesF, low enough to cause worries...
...winds as high as 150 knots buffeted the aircraft. Even so, the real difficulty came from 40-knot gusts that tossed the plane around during landings. With special scientific instruments installed in pods on its long, droopy wings, the ER-2 is "like a big albatross -- it's heavy-winged," says Operations Manager James Cherbonneaux of NASA's Ames Research Center. While watching a particularly hairy approach to the runway at Punta Arenas, he recalls, "I chewed a little bit of my heart...
...whisked off across the Potomac to lunch with her staff at the luxurious Windows restaurant, then came back for a very private dinner with her husband. Oddly, no reporter asked Press Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater what birthday Mrs. Reagan was celebrating. She was, in fact, an elegant and lively 64, er, give or take a year. But birthdays and almost everything else had been pushed aside in the media, all waiting for the big clash on Capitol Hill...