dead man’s curve
n.— «Failure of the clutch cable in the final moments of a flight, when the pilot hovers at low altitude before landing, wouldn’t have left Nagle enough time or airspeed momentum to recover—a vulnerable zone helicopter pilots call the dead man’s curve, slang for the height-velocity curve.» —“Lucky to be alive” by Patrick Springer The Forum (Fargo, N.D.) Apr. 25, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital is a sensuous, exhilarating meditation about the strangeness of life on a space station, with its mix of tedious tasks and jaw-dropping views. And: a musician who rode the rails in his youth shares the slang he...
Steve, a singer-songwriter from Rock Springs, Wyoming, shares some slang he picked up while months riding the rails and busking. Spanging refers to panhandling, from asking for “spare change.” The term bull refers to a type of security...