Word: radar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Reading Others' Radar. If there had been some question at the outset whether the Pueblo might have violated North Korean waters, there was no such doubt about the EC-121. Its crew had orders to stay at least 50 nautical miles off the North Korean coast. Some wreckage from the aircraft turned up 85 miles at sea. Nixon insisted that American, Russian and North Korean radar had all shown the EC-121 clearly over international waters. His remark revealed for the first time that the U.S. has electronic gadgets that can read what other nations' radars are reporting...
...less spectacular type of spy plane is the slower patrol aircraft that measures radar capabilities and eavesdrops obliquely on enemy radio communications from a distance. The plodding, prop-driven EC-121 shot down by North Korean MIGs last week is a military version of the Super Constellation airliner. The EC-121 is an ungainly bird, its basically graceful lines awkwardly broken by wartlike plastic radar domes above and below the fuselage. Four piston engines give it a cruising speed of only 300 m.p.h., but it has immense range. It can fly 6,500 miles, staying aloft for more than...
Through an infinitely complicated mechanism, 135 million passengers were ticketed last year, encased in pressurized aluminum cabins, hurled aloft by 50,000 Ibs. of jet-engine thrust, comforted with rough California wine and bland Iowa steak. From the moment a plane takes off, it must be watched, first by radar at air-route traffic control centers, then by approach controllers, who assign the ship to a runway or stack it in a holding pattern. The trip costs the passenger about 5.60 per mile...
Better safety devices are being tested. One is a radio transmitter and a device that sets off an alarm when two planes are on collision course. It instructs one pilot to fly up, the other down. To relieve overburdened controllers, the FAA has begun to install computerized radar control systems at a few airports; these automatically print out aircraft identification, altitude and speed...
...Tricks. The plane's micro-miniaturized gear includes "side-looking" radar to peer through clouds and map terrain far from its path. New cameras use "folded optics" to produce telescopic closeups in black-and-white or on new, grainless color film-which can be dropped in pods and parachuted to waiting intelligence officers. When sensitive receivers detect incoming radar pulses, the Blackbird can dip into its bag of tricks and give itself "electronic invisibility." There is even a top-secret method of masking the SR-71's heat emissions to confuse enemy infrared tracking. Put together...