Word: wingtips
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...point at which their lift is applied is only slightly shifted. Part of each wingtip swings into its wing root and ceases to produce lift. The part still exposed also loses lift because the airstream, slanting over it diagonally, is less disturbed by its thickness. Only the fixed wing roots do not change. When the airplane reaches top speed, with wings folded far back, the wide wing roots take over much of the lifting...
...flew 59 ground-support missions in the Pacific's Marshall Islands. After the war, he developed a cocksure method of demonstrating his flying skill. Says Marine Lieut. Colonel John Mason: "Johnny would fly up alongside you and slip his wing right under yours, then tap it gently against your wingtip. I've never seen such a smooth pilot...
...jets soared up to play tag with the Western planes, just as they had done several times before in Berlin's war of nerves. Most kept their distance, but not all. One U.S. Air Force Globemaster pilot reported that a "stranger" zoomed to within 20 ft. of his wingtip, and a plane carrying Sir Christopher Steel, the British ambassador in Bonn, was buzzed by high-diving Communist pilots...
...East German searchlights on them. And one afternoon last week, Pan American's Flight No. 609, flying well in the center of the northern corridor to Hamburg, spotted a Soviet MIG-17 fighter with six rockets under each wing soaring 200 ft. off the airliner's right wingtip. "He just sat there, where all the passengers could see him," said Pan Am Captain Tony Duff. When Duff's plane entered a convenient layer of stratus cloud, the MIG peeled off and vanished, but the maneuver was an obvious hint of what could come...
...obtain the last inch of range, the last moment of endurance. The thin straight wings were a model of aerodynamic cleanliness; the raked, razorlike tail added a minimum of drag. Even the landing gear was pared to the final ounce. Light bicycle-type main wheels were aided by wingtip wheels that were dropped immediately after takeoff. Between gliding and plain powered flight, Sekigawa guessed that the U-2 could stay aloft as long as nine hours on a single trip...