Word: thunderclap
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Dates: during 1952-1952
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...California, a cluster of scientists and Air Force brass watched a silvery, swept-wing jet fighter roar down the runway and into the air for a test flight. It climbed high in the air, then leveled off and shot across the air base with a roar like a thunderclap. This week Long Island's Republic Aviation Corp. proudly announced the results of the flight: its XF-91, powered by a General Electric J47 turbojet and a Reaction Motors rocket engine, had become the first U.S. combat plane to fly through the sound barrier in level flight. (Other supersonic planes...
...always convincingly ad lib. The Bible Billy mentions constantly: "The Bible says . . . Now don't get mad at me. Billy Graham didn't say it. The Bible says it." (The word "Bible" rolls up from Billy's diaphragm and out over the audience like a thunderclap...
...flying a De Havilland DH-110, a twinjet, all-weather fighter. Before 120,000 spectators, including his young wife, Pilot Derry climbed to more than eight miles and dived, jets screaming, straight toward the crowd. Down he flashed at more than 700 m.p.h. When he leveled off, the double thunderclap of his shock waves-palpable as ocean breakers-crashed against the crowd's bodies and ears. Derry turned again to make a low pass. Then the crowd saw disaster: in eerie, total silence, the DH-110 disintegrated...