tin whisker n.— «Tin whiskers, one-fortieth the diameter of a human hair, are causing intermittent performance problems in the Hughes AN/APG-63 radar used on the Air Force/McDonnell Douglas F-15 and could pose problems for other...
purple adj.— «Behind his desk at U.S. Strategic Command, Rear Adm. Ralph Tindal keeps a purple military hat. On the front of the hat is a patch of Velcro, where the service emblem normally would be. Tindal has Navy and Air Force emblems...
rat-racing n.— «Some of our pilots satisfy their nostalgia by rat racing with Canadian[s]…from another base.» —“Remote Radar Stations Keep Air Force ‘Cocked’” by Joseph A. Dear in Germany Michigan Evening...
rat-racing n.— «She says the experience of “rat-racing around at 150 to 200 knots” in her G-300 is comparable to what she experiences in the SR-71.» —“U.S. Pilots, Planes Travel To ‘Olympics Of The Air’ Aboard Air Force C...
paper airplane n.— «The Secretary of the Air Force, Verne Orr, has asserted that the Stealth plane, which Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger is seriously considering as the nation’s next long-range bomber, is “a paper...
first shirt n.— «The distribution, largely ramrodded by various squadron first sergeants—first shirts in Air Force parlance—has been a Barksdale tradition since the early 1980s and probably dates even earlier.» —“Barksdale continues...