Word: pilots
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...head the new Ballistic Missile Force, SAC's Commanding General Thomas S. Power tapped strapping (6 ft. 4 in., 225 Ibs.) Major General David Wade, 47, SAC chief of staff since mid-1956. A veteran bomber pilot, Louisiana-born General Wade saw Air Force duty in two wars, but he carried out his most daring exploit on the ground: stationed in Japan during the Korean War as commander of a B-29 wing, he won the Soldier's Medal for plunging into the burning wreckage of a fighter plane and hauling the pilot to safety...
...toughest problems of space navigation is to dress spacemen so they can live and function outside the controlled environment of their cabins. Even for high-altitude airplane pilots, protective suits are essential. Above 63,000 ft. (where the blood boils), the air is as bad as a vacuum for any pilot who bails out into it. Last week the Air Force showed off a "full pressure suit" that is an advance over its predecessors. But it would not by any means permit its wearer to take a stroll on the moon...
...reflect solar or A-bomb heat. Inside is a coverall of special, airproofed nylon material carefully fitted to the individual wearer's body. In its normal, pressureless state, it is flexible and reasonably comfortable (see cut). Cold air or oxygen can be pumped through it to cool the pilot if his cabin gets...
...stays relaxed, but if the cabin loses its pressure at, say, 150,000 ft., an automatic valve shoots oxygen into the suit from the airplane's supply. The inner suit blows up like a man-shaped balloon. Complicated pressure-and temperature-regulating gadgets go into action, surrounding the pilot with an environment in which he can stay alive in spite of the near vacuum that has developed in the damaged cabin. He has at least a chance to fly the airplane down to livable...
...airplane is seriously damaged or if something has happened to its oxygen supply, the pilot must bail out. When he cuts loose, the quick-thinking suit switches to a bottle of oxygen in the parachute pack and keeps the man alive on the long fall toward earth...