Word: sanding
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...even more eventful than the voyage across the Atlantic. Said Maxie: "We went from ecstasy to despair at least once a day." After they lifted off from Fort Baker on San Francisco Bay at 12:33 a.m. on May 8, Maxie and Kris threw overboard 1,000 lbs. of sand and water ballast and rose to 23,000 ft. There they had to don cumbersome oxygen masks and heavy parkas, but caught a breeze that sent them northeast...
Although the sandstorms were common to all three helicopter failures, the mission leaders do not blame their problems on the weather. Pentagon officials disclosed that the choppers' 150-lb. sand screens had been removed to increase the engines' thrust by 3%, a possibly critical safety margin. But the screens are designed only to protect the engines from long-term wear from dirt, which apparently was not a factor in any of the breakdowns...
Investigators suspect that the overheating in the first craft resulted from a cooling vent having been blocked by a crewman's flak jacket and bag. If so, that obviously was human error. The swirling sand, investigators say, could not have cracked the rotor blade in the second craft. The cause may never be known. The failure of the third chopper's pump also is a mystery and presumably could not have been caused by sand because the helicopters' hydraulic systems are well sealed...
...strongest work is the product of sensibilities inclined towards the commonplace, the fragmentary, the unresolved, and the best photographs are frequently of nothing much at all. Duane Powell gets a peculiar, hovering beauty out of a telephone pole, the cresent of a car top, and a nubbly expanse of sand. Bill de Palma's black-and-white picture of a black billboard, a line of trees, two parked cars and a man in an overcoat holding a paper cup, beside a wet-haired kid wearing sunglasses, is a display of visual acuity remarkable for its simplicity, poise and verve...
...similar antiterrorist specialists, are also said to have helped in the training. With its diverse support forces, the team flew to undisclosed desert sites in the U.S. Southwest, where it conducted seven full rehearsals of the operation, some at night, to overcome the problem of operating in clouds of sand kicked up by high winds or the landing and take-offs of huge helicopters and cargo craft...