Word: wingtips
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...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...
...career. In 1930 he became a member of the U.S. Navy's famous Fighting Squadron 1, the High Hat Squadron (skipper of the High Hats: Lieut. Commander Arthur W. Radford). Nine of the High Hats, including Thach and Radford, barnstormed the nation in Curtiss F8C4 Hell-divers, tied wingtip to wingtip with Manila rope. Bound thus, Thach and some of his comrades astonished crowds with loops, snap rolls and high wing overs-and never snapped a rope or a wing. When Hollywood filmed Hell Divers in 1931, the High Hats flew all the stunt scenes. Clark Gable...
Boling planned the flight for nine months, spent part of his time checking charts and part learning to stay awake 48 hours at a stretch. His 250-h.p. plane was fitted with auxiliary wingtip tanks to provide an extra 124 gal. of gas (he consumed all but eleven), and with a special horn. Horn's function: to blow every hour, prevent his falling asleep too long. Boling left a parachute behind to save 25 Ibs.. stocked up on canned pears, apricot nectar and Fig Newtons. Special baggage: the white Bible his wife Joyce, a Seventh-day Adventist, carried...
Flying at 6,000 ft., averaging 152 m.p.h., Boling swung routinely above Okinawa and Japan, jumped the ocean to the Aleutians. There he ran into his only trouble. When the wingtip tanks unaccountably began to lose fuel, and the engine coughed in the cold, Boling began running over his ditching check list. Then he decided to stay with the plane. He dropped to 1,500 ft.; when the engine purred again, he flew confidently on. Approaching the Pendleton airport he radioed a single request: permission to land without circling because...