Word: spad
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...great inventor, turning his ideas into mechanical marvels that would bring glory to France. Unlike most daydreamers, Dassault was equipped with the talent and drive to turn fantasy into reality. At 23, only two years out of aeronautical school, he designed the propeller for the famed Spad fighter of World War I. At 60 he designed and built France's first topflight jet fighter, the sweptwing, transonic Mystère. Last week Dassault, now 64, showed off his latest marvel, the Mirage, a lightweight, 1,000-m.p.h. interceptor...
...helper in 1916. Under one of its founders, an ex-welder named Charles E. Thompson, the 15-year old company had already built a tidy business making auto valves. In World War I, its business almost doubled, and Thompson branched into aircraft, making valves for France's Spad fighters. By 1929, when the Thompson Trophy was created for Cleveland's National Air Races, Crawford had moved up to vice president and general manager. At Thompson's death* in 1933, Crawford took over a company with gross sales of $3,000,000. He ran it so well that...
Rickenbacker, a flamboyant figure in pink britches, a fancy non-regulation tunic, and the shiniest British boots in the A.E.F., set an amazing pace. He kept two Spad pursuit ships, each bearing the number 1, and the famed hat-in-the-ring insigne. He landed one, gulped coffee, and took off in the other, often flew six or seven hours a day. His haggard young men followed, and celebrated their adventures with a squadron ballad...