Word: flighted
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...argued, taught students to fly only straight and level, and didn't teach cadets the building blocks of military flying, including a dizzying array of loops, rolls and spins. With the T-3, the Air Force could offer what it called an "enhanced flight-screening program," which could pinpoint "those cadets who have the basic aptitude to become Air Force pilots." McPeak encouraged his service to buy a trainer that could spin, the wing tips tracing a circle after the plane has lost, at least temporarily, its ability to remain aloft. It is a maneuver so dangerous that Air Force...
...sputtered during a turn at about 500 ft. It quickly entered a spin and exploded in a fireball just after hitting the ground two miles east of the academy airfield. Their plane had been written up by pilots 10 times for engine problems, including one during the flight immediately before the fatal trip. The Air Force said the engine was running at impact, although it was producing so little power that the propeller was barely turning. "If Pace was flying in the Gulf War and died, I could understand that," his mother says. "But they were just supposed...
...pilots at both Hondo and Colorado Springs believe the plane flies much better in the lower, and heavier, Texas air than in the thin air above Colorado's mile-high plains. Some Air Force safety experts have recommended that the entire T-3 operation be based at Hondo. "The flight school shouldn't be in the mountains," says one such expert. "But Annapolis has boats and West Point has cannon, and so saying you're not going to have planes at the Air Force Academy doesn't sound right...
...ordered back into the air. The Air Force finally grounded the T-3s last July 25 after an engine once again stopped in midair and neither the cadet nor the instructor could restart it. Luckily, the plane was over the academy runway and landed safely. "We want an effective flight-screening program, but a safe one," says General Lloyd Newton, head of the service's Air Education and Training Command in San Antonio, Texas, who ordered the grounding. "We've certainly bumped into some rough spots with this aircraft, but that doesn't mean it's a bad aircraft...
Last week United Airlines Flight 826 from Tokyo experienced this special brand of aviation hell, leading to 83 injuries and one death. Though life-threatening turbulence happens far less often than the mild rumbles most flyers experience, it is still all too common. On average, 17 U.S.-based planes get slapped around enough to cause injuries each year; between 1980 and 1995, 129 people were seriously hurt, two fatally...