Word: rockets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...gone through her paces 20 times at the hands of other pilots; they knew her whims and fancies so well that the testers decided it was unnecessary for Apt to make the once routine series of dead-stick glide tests before he was allowed to cut in the rockets. So at 30,000 feet over Edwards one day last week, Test Pilot Apt was dropped in the X-2 from the belly of a B50 bomber. Smoothly, he touched off the rocket engines and roared up into the sky. Two minutes later, he was in trouble; the X-2 hurtled...
Modern high-altitude rockets are not always complex monsters like their ancestral V2. They are steadily growing smaller, simpler and cheaper. This week Republic Aviation Corp. told about a non-military rocket that it is manufacturing for a Defense Department project administered by the University of Maryland. Called the Terrapin (after the university's mascot), it is a two-stage, solid-propellant rocket that climbs 80 miles...
...extraordinary thing about the Terrapin is its small size and simplicity. It is less than 15 ft. long, 6¼ in. in diameter, and weighs only 224 lbs. It has none of the expensive valves, pumps, turbines, etc., that cram the innards of liquid-propellant rockets. Its propulsive mechanism is nothing but two strong-walled "bottles" tightly filled with a slow-burning explosive. When the first bottle fires, the rocket reaches the speed of 1,900 m.p.h. in six seconds. The second bottle takes over at 40,000 ft. and boosts the speed to 3,800 m.p.h. Only the simplest...
...only, but both of its propulsive units are of military design. Its payload has not been released, and this suggests strongly that it may be able to carry a lightweight nuclear warhead. Suitably modified for military purposes, the Terrapin may not be very different from the small, atom-armed rocket that the Army calls Little John. A modest increase in size would give it atomic capability...
...helicopters, because "you're like a bird-you can go anywhere you want." By 1946 Bell was in production with its first basic Model 47 helicopter, has since sold more than 1,000. Airman Bell also led the attack on the sound barrier with the stainless-steel, rocket-engined X-1, which blazed to a 967-m.p.h. speed record in 1948. Five years later Bell's improved X-1A topped 1,650 m.p.h. and a 90,000-ft. altitude (TIME...