Word: falconer
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Science we report the story of a daring plane waiting to be built, now that a Government scientist has solved the trick of developing a fighter that can stretch its wings at low speeds, or fold them in the air like a peregrine falcon closing in for the kill...
Wings spread as it wheels through high, slow arcs, wings tucked back as it plummets in a swift hunting dive, the peregrine falcon is a picture of functional perfection. No airplane has yet come close to copying its easy versatility. But aeronautical engineers have never stopped trying, and the Department of Defense is convinced that government scientists have finally turned the trick. Last week leaders of the U.S. aircraft industry were locked in fierce competition for the privilege of building a "variable geometry" fighter that can stretch its wings at low speeds during take-offs and landings, or fold them...
...believed that the compact boom of the late '50s marked the death of the American car buyer's traditional urge to move up to higher-priced cars. For a time, this skepticism seemed likely to lead G.M. into serious trouble. In 1959, when Ford's compact Falcon scored an immediate success while Chevrolet's rear-engine Corvair was something of a dud, it appeared that Ford might grab off the lion's share of an important new market. Almost by chance, however, Chevrolet dressed up some Corvairs with pizazz features to attract customers into showrooms...
...edge in diversity of product. With their 1962 lines, the other auto manufacturers hoped to persuade the buying public to settle down to a relatively few standard-sized, compact and intermediate models. Gambling heavily on the intermediate Fairlane-which has done well, but partly at the expense of Falcon and Galaxie sales-Ford downgraded its medium-priced Mercury. In similar mood, Chrysler turned the Dodge into a Plymouth-priced Dart, and American Motors shortened its Ambassador. Meantime, to flesh out its own big and standard lines, G.M. showed that it was not above borrowing a good idea from a competitor...
Nine F-10s Thunderchiefs swooped low, dropped 750-lb. bombs that disintegrated a target supply depot. A dozen F-100 Super Sabres scorched the earth with napalm. A Falcon rocket burst from an F106 Delta Dart, sent a drone aircraft to the ground in blazing bits. As a Tactical Air Command flight of F-105s sped overhead, a simulated nuclear bomb was exploded in a miniature fireball and nonradioactive mushroom cloud. As the waves of noise, heat and blast rolled across Florida's Eglin Air Force Base, Commander in Chief John Kennedy grinned from a rocking chair...