Word: plane
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...being rehabilitated of my dangerous liaison with cleanliness. It's all my mother's fault, I think bitterly as I board the plane to head home for a weekend. "Hi, Bonnie," my mother's singsong voice greets me at the airport. Inescapably, I smile back and hug her, feeling guilty for my transgressions. And somehow, despite my rigorous regimen at school, my closet Obsessive Hygienist still runs free at home...
LATEST VERSION: The current aircraft is 40% larger than the original U-2. The single-seat, single-engine, glider-like plane has a length of 63 ft. and a wingspan of 103 ft. Each plane costs an estimated $34 million, and 36 are on active duty...
MISSION: High-altitude voyeurism. The reconnaissance plane collects multisensor photo, electro-optic, infrared and radar imagery--day or night and in all kinds of weather. It's been used to peek at everyone from Khrushchev to Castro to Ho Chi Minh, left. Among its more benign photo ops: floods, volcanoes and crops...
NOMENCLATURE: The government originally said it was a weather-reconnaissance aircraft and labeled the plane U for utility. U.S. pilots call it the Dragon Lady. The Soviets dubbed the planes the black ladies of espionage. (No, the band, bottom, didn't take its name from the plane; band members just liked the sound...
WEAK POINT: Rube Goldberg-like take-offs and landings, utilizing a flimsy bicycle landing-gear arrangement. Pogo outriggers support the wings and drop away when the plane lifts off. On landing, "it's like riding a bike off the back end of a flatbed truck at 70 m.p.h.," says U-2 pilot Major Jeff Jungemann. As the plane descends, another pilot races behind it in a Chevy Camaro, radioing to the plane's pilot his distance to the runway...