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
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
When Marilyn from Boston, Massachusetts, used the expression Them’s the berries! with neighbors in her hometown of nearby Arlington, Massachusetts, she was surprised they were unfamiliar with it. The phrase means something like “That’s...