Word: liftoff
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...civilian biplane, looking like a goldfish among sharks. It is the film's last laugh. Trapped in that jug-necked harbor, the men of the Arizona, the regulars on easy duty in Schofield Barracks, are pathetically vulnerable targets. An airplane desperately taxis down its runway, straining for liftoff. A bomb scores a direct hit. The pilot becomes a gout of smoke, the propeller detaches crazily, scudding across the earth. Men are flooded in holds, set afire, strafed as they run along unprotected fields. American bombers and P-40s are bunched together, ideal targets for bombardiers. And back in Washington...
...while a vertical guide rail in the center of the pathway takes the place of its spinning rotor. When enough electrical power is fed into the system, the train begins to move forward. Like an airplane, the train needs old-fashioned wheels for low-speed travel until it reaches "liftoff" at about 50 m.p.h...
Painful Choice. Another bug-this one viral-made the hours before liftoff almost as tense as the launch itself. The countdown for the mission was about to begin when Astronaut Charles Duke, of the Apollo 13 back-up crew, complained of chills, fever and a rash. Doctors diagnosed his illness as rubella, or German measles. Duke had apparently caught the disease from the children of friends. Dismayed NASA officials immediately ordered blood tests of Apollo 13's first-line crew members, who had come in contact with Duke during several preflight conferences. Both Astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise...