Need a Scrabble word with q or z? Grant shares some of his favorite legal Scrabble words: qi (the circulating life force in Chinese philosophy), qat (a leaf chewed in some cultures for stimulating effects), and za (a shortening of the word...
Mike, a retired Air Force pilot in Mondovi, Wisconsin, asks why the bomb-release switch on an aircraft is called a pickle button and why pickle off means to drop bombs or fuel tanks. The likely trail starts in the U.S. Navy, where torpedoes were...
DADT n.— «One factor that makes her case interesting is that Witt never openly violated the tangled “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, or “DADT” as it is known. She was outed when an anonymous tipster told Air Force...
gangloading n.— «Yesterday I joined 14 students in the altitude training chamber at the Eighty-ninth Physiological Training Flight at Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Maryland. Wearing helmets and oxygen masks that covered...
show me run n.— «“We have what is called a show me run, where our lead plane pilot (in a smaller plane) shows us where he wants us to drop,” Colonel Barkdull said. “He describes the start point and where he wants the line to...
cross-canning n.— «The Iraqi chief engineer weighed his options and decided to transfer parts from another aircraft that had accumulated high-flight hours, and was closer to its next scheduled maintenance inspection; this process is...