Word: tested
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...only test is combat-whether it's a weapon or a general or a second lieutenant or a private. WTe Americans brag too much about ourselves before we know what we are talking about, and we get some awful let-downs." > A high-ranking officer recently returned from overseas: "Any attempt we made to get the blunt truth into our communiqués was blocked. Most of us believed the American people could take it, but the tendency in higher quarters was to shield the people from the hard, cruel facts. . . . Whether this was deliberate shielding of the people...
...those few moments, 32 died, eleven from the bomber's crew, 21 in the flaming ruins of the packing plant. Among them was the greatest test pilot aviation had ever had. "Eddie" Allen, who had no peer in his combination of piloting virtuosity and engineering skill, had made his last flight. Airmen sadly agreed that probably no other man in aviation could be so hardly spared...
...Testing and Insurance. Most of the big ones were Eddie Allen's babies-Douglas' DCs, Boeing's Stratoliner and Clipper, Consolidated's four-motored Coronado, Curtiss-Wright's Commando, Lockheed's new Constellation (which he shook down last month). Greatest single tribute to his skill was that a big insurance company refused to cover such test flights unless Eddie Allen was up front...
Allen's problem: how to add 20,000 Ib. weight to the Fortress without decreasing its altitude or its speed. Adding a tail-gun was revolutionary in itself. It meant greatly increased weight, a displaced center of gravity. How well Eddie Allen succeeded in applying his test-pilot-M.I.T. knowledge of engineering is emphasized almost daily from Rabaul to Bizerte...
Daredeviltry and Research. Eddie Allen, 47, looked like no Hollywood conception of a test pilot. He was modest to the point of shyness. Frail as a column of smoke, he never weighed more than 135. The few straggly strands of hair on top of his bald pate made him look like a tweedy cupid. His nose was fused into his face when he spun to earth more than 20 years ago in young Fred Harvey's white Curtiss Jenny, but many years later a plastic surgeon built him a creditable nose...