Word: lofting
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...best way to avoid this misadventure is "loft-bombing," which uses the speed of the airplane to make the bomb behave like an artillery shell. The airplane is equipped with a "black box" of gyros and electronics named LABS (Low Altitude Bombing System), manufactured by Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co. The plane approaches the target flying as low as possible to keep below the enemy's radar. The atom bomb under its belly has been set to explode in the desired manner, at a predetermined altitude, or after actually penetrating the ground. The LABS apparatus has been cranked full...
Over the Shoulder. The main advantage of loft-bombing, however, is not the range of the bomb, but the time that it spends in the air while the airplane is making its getaway. This figure is secret too, but if air resistance is ignored, a bomb tossed upward at 750 ft. per second will rise for about 23 seconds and fall for about the same time. This will give the airplane 46 seconds to turn itself upright and streak for safety before the bomb explodes...
...even more spectacular type of loft-bombing is used when there is no good landmark to sight on near the target. In such cases, the pilot sets his LABS apparatus for "over the shoulder" bombing, and pulls up into his climb when he is directly over the target. LABS does not release the bomb until the climbing curve has progressed a little beyond the vertical. When the bomb leaves the airplane, it rises in an almost vertical trajectory. It is not quite vertical, however. To compensate for the horizontal distance that the airplane covered after it passed over the target...
...selling their pets for food. Last month, when a rash crook kidnaped half a dozen prizewinners and sent one of his own homers with a ransom note, the whole valley rose in wrath. Pigeon partisans tagged the go-between pigeon with streamers, trailed it by plane back to its loft, and turned the rustler over to the courts...
Released in groups by officials of the breeders' association, each pigeon is fitted out with a numbered leg band. When the pigeon arrives at its loft, its owner slips the band into a metal capsule, which is then placed in an accurate time clock, automatically recording the moment of arrival. The capsules are returned to race officials, who calculate elapsed time and determine the winners. The judges are much more leisurely than the pigeons (which have been known to flap home as fast as 60 m.p.h.). Of the 70,000 contestants last week, all but those hopelessly lost have...