Word: wingspan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...great birds (wingspan: about 7 ft.) go through such distressingly gooney antics that Navymen long ago dubbed them gooney birds. Among other things, they need large, clear areas to take off and land, and they find airports ideal. The friendly gooney birds lay their big eggs on or near the runways, rise in clouds as if to welcome planes on landing or to see them off on takeoffs. Often they fly smack into an airborne craft. They have dived into propellers, smashed against expensive radomes, causing about $300,000 damage a year. Far worse is the ever-present danger that...
With its soft. length and 22-ft. wingspan, the X-15 looks more like a missile than an airplane. A sophisticated descendant of the X-1 rocket plane in which Test Pilot "Chuck" Yeager first broke the sound barrier (TIME, June 21, 1948), it is expected to reach 3,600 m.p.h.-twice the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet. Since such speeds cannot be maintained in the lower atmosphere, the X-15 will be carried to 35,000 ft. by a B-52, will then climb to an altitude of 100 miles. Burning liquid ammonia and liquid oxygen...