Word: mache
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...advantages. The air passing over them diagonally (parallel to the plane's motion) acts as if it were passing directly across the wing at right angles to its leading edge. This "short cut" slows the air-stream's apparent speed, and reduces the shockwave difficulties associated with Mach 1 (the speed of sound, 770 m.p.h...
When a plane is flying at Mach 1 or above, shock waves flare back in a "V" from its nose and wing roots like water waves from the bow of a ship. The swept-back wings keep inside the V, and avoid a tangle with the shock wave...
Last week Test Pilot John Derry was flying De Havilland's experimental DH-108 at 40,000 feet over southern England. The weather was clear, the "machometer" (speed indicator in fractions of the speed of sound) showed Mach .86. Derry felt just right, so he opened the throttle and turned the nose down...
...speed of the dive increased, the machometer needle crept up to Mach 1, the speed of sound. Then it went on up to Mach 1.1. The controls felt heavy, but nothing really unpleasant happened. Derry checked the speed and leveled off. He had traveled faster than sound in an engine-driven plane (the DH-108 is no rocket-ship like the U.S. Bell S-1), and was none the worse. His top speed was probably just under 700 m.p.h...
After reading your article [TIME, Aug. 9] concerning turbojet engines with speeds to Mach 4 and plus (enabling a pilot to lunch in New York and then fly to Honolulu to breakfast on the same day), I am prepared to give ground (or sky) to the future "zoomies." As a former Navy fighter pilot I had heretofore considered our navigation and power plant problems more difficult than would be our successors' with their simple jet engines and new navigational aids. [But] the pilot of the future will need a chronometer that runs backwards and is inscribed Yesterday, Today...