Word: gadget
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...program's national audience. (Says Schwerin: "There is no such thing as a typical radio audience.") Then they listen to programs, recording their reactions on a tab sheet. About every 30 seconds they check the "good," "fair," or "poor" column. After Jan. 1, testers will use a mechanical gadget called the "reacto-caster," developed by Schwerin's father...
...high altitudes, can reach compressibility in ordinary level flight. The pilot opens the throttle. The speed picks up as the magic jet engine shoves harder. It is as smooth as oil, so nearly vibrationless that sometimes a special gadget is installed to tap on the instrument board and keep the plane's instruments from sticking...
...success of the A.A.F.'s new pilot ejection seat would be welcome news to airmen who had long worried about bailing out of high-speed aircraft. But A.A.F. designers could not claim complete credit. The idea had been copied from a similar Luftwaffe gadget...
From then on business boomed. Kahn set up his own shop (Weatherman Co.), took on 80 employes. The U.S. Weather Bureau attested to the gadget's accuracy. Ships Service at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station ordered five gross. Other orders flocked in from as far afield as South Africa, South America, the Far East. At $1.69 apiece, the weather houses grossed $70,000 in 1942, $350,000 the next year, $800,000 last year. Production has reached a rate of 6,500 units...
Last week the Navy described its version of the gadget that is stealing the test pilot's job. The cockpit of the plane to be tested is crammed with instruments and radio equipment. Part of the gear controls the plane engine, flight controls, landing gear, etc., by radio signals. The rest, by radio and television, reports the plane's performance in the air, and does it more completely than any pilot could...