Word: spinproof
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hurtles toward earth before pulling his ripcord. The skillful sky diver leaves the plane spread-eagled, looking somewhat like a highboard swan diver, his body horizontal. Despite falling speeds up to 120 m.p.h.. the body is remarkably stable in this position. Properly executed, a sky dive is spinproof (accidental spins can whirl or tumble the body up to three times a second, black out the jumper) and keeps the diver on his belly, so his backpack chute can open without fouling. In addition, the sky diver becomes a sort of low-efficiency glider. By moving his arms and legs...
...seems the Stoughton men never liked to pay for phone calls. For several moths they had been spinning pennies into coin slots but finally the phone company caught on and put in a spinproof chute. This didn't work either, as the ingenious men of '53 made over a hundred more penny phone calls before the company pulled the instrument from the wall. One national magazine had a few choice things to say about the incident...
...Stoughton men were annoyed last week when newspapers said they hit the phone with a baseball bat--'It was always a brick." After the spinproof chute was installed "one forehanded genius was practicing spinning nickels into the quarter slot in preparation for a call to his home in Texas...
| 1 |