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
A book of photographs and essays by famous writers celebrates libraries — and the librarians who changed their lives. Plus cutting doughnuts, spinning cookies, and pulling brodies: There are lots of ways to talk about spinning a car in circles on...
Oofless is an antiquated bit of British slang that describes someone temporarily short on cash. It’s from ooftisch, a Yiddish-derived term for “cash placed on the table,” from German auf Tisch. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...