Word: gear
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...decrease itself was not so drastic, but its suddenness was a shocker. And when it came to preparing the public and handling the announcement that it was going on short weeks in four out of 23 assembly plants, General Motors was in low gear. The company gave the news to the press in a routine weekly release of production figures. G.M.'s executives were dismayed at the immediate effect of the announcement on the sensitive stock market and were worried that press reports had conveyed a false impression that some plants were shutting down altogether...
...Base. Hearing a loud thump on the fuselage and seeing a red warning light blinking on the control panel, Alvin White, 47, North American Aviation's chief test pilot in the West, and his copilot, Air Force Colonel Joseph Cotton, 44, knew something was amiss with their landing gear. Pursuit jets monitoring the flight reported that one of the two tires on Cecil's forward gear had blown and the entire assembly was jammed against the partly open doors of the wheel cavity. A computer governing the gear's operation had malfunctioned, causing the doors to start...
While White and Cotton tried desperately to move the gear by whipping the plane's nose up and down, ground engineers pored over charts in order to pinpoint the exact cause of the trouble. They concluded that a short circuit had snarled the computer, which was programmed to allow the landing gear to rise and descend only when the wheel-cavity doors were fully open. Control of the gear thus had to be removed from the computer. By causing a second short circuit, ground engineers advised, the pilots might manage to circumvent the computer and disengage the landing gear...
...that he uses to hold papers in his documents case, Cotton ripped off one of the clasp's wire handles, stripped an equipment strap for insulation ("My hands were sweating") and inserted the wire with the pliers. "Okay, okay!" he yelled to White, who then pushed the forward-gear button. A pursuit plane radioed that the gear was descending as intended and seemed to be locking into place...
After cruising for another 75 minutes to reduce their fuel load, White decided to graze the ground briefly to ascertain whether the forward gear was properly locked in place. As soon as he touched down, six of the eight tires on the main landing gear blew out. The same computer failure that had affected the forward gear had locked the brakes on the main wheels, freezing them. White had no choice but to go through with the landing. "It was an experience we wouldn't have missed for worlds," said White, "and one we wouldn't like...