Word: take-off
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...series of 300,000-candle-power flares, recorded by a motion-picture camera. When its mission is accomplished, the drone can be parachuted to earth, reused time and again. "These little fellows have four obvious pluses for the field commander," says an Army droneman. "They require no take-off or landing strip; they are effective at night, when the enemy makes his important moves; they are easily recoverable; and they are pilotless -precious life is being preserved...
...piled into their jeeps. (One coveralled pilot got notice of the alert when the warning light went on over the Catholic chapel altar, where he was at prayer.) Down premarked roadways they headed for their planes, where ground crews were already at work. Methodically they went down their take-off check lists (the long preflight checks had been done hours before, were done anew daily) and got ready to take off with a whine and a roar. Opening padlocked metal containers and black satchels, the combat crews checked the emergency war plans they had learned by heart in daily briefings...
Author Kerr goes on to spoof interior decorating, domestic pets, diets and operations. It's a pity that she does less of what she does best, literary parodies. She confines herself to a hilarious take-off on the morose moppet, Franchise Sagan (TIME, Dec. 10, 1956) and an equally funny spoof of Mickey Spillane called "Don Brown's Body." Sample: "I was going into Longchamps when this tomato waltzes by. She was a tomato surprise. A round white face with yellow hair poured over it like chicken gravy on mashed potatoes. Her raccoon coat was tight...
After a stopover on its way from Guam to Japan, an Air Force C-47 lumbered off Iwo Jima's big new landing strip, only seconds after take-off lost one engine and stuttered with its other. No. 13 on the plane's passenger manifest: well-Oriented Author James A. (Tales of the South Pacific) Michener, immersed in some island-hopping research for a book on the Strategic Air Command. Unable to regain the strip, the pilot chose to go by the book, ditched the aircraft and immersed Michener in Michener's favorite ocean. Rescued after...
...outdone by Russian high jumpers and their Pogo-stick shoes (TIME, Sept. 9), California's Ernie Shelton got into the act at the University Games in Paris, sported a triangular aluminum cookie cutter on his take-off foot, designed :o give him more "spring action." He inished a low (6 ft. 6 in.) third. Ahead: Russia's Yuri Stepanov (6 ft., 6 in.) and Igor Kashkarov (6 ft. 7 in.), still wearing platform soles...