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glider

(Encyclopedia)glider, type of aircraft resembling an airplane but having at most a small auxiliary propulsion plant and usually no means of propulsion at all. The typical modern glider has very slender wings and a ...

Edwards Air Force Base

(Encyclopedia)Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the wo...

Ellsworth, Lincoln

(Encyclopedia)Ellsworth, Lincoln, 1880–1951, American explorer, b. Chicago, Ill. He was a surveyor and engineer in railroad building and later a prospector and mining engineer in NW Canada. He became the financia...

Flight 93 National Memorial

(Encyclopedia)Flight 93 National Memorial, memorial, visitors complex, and other facilities at the site of the crash of the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, near Shanksville, Pa. The grounds, 2...

Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de

(Encyclopedia)Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de (Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupéry) äNtwänˈ-märēˈ-rôzhāˈ də săNtĕgzüpārēˈ [key], 1900–1944, French aviator and writer. He became a commercial pilot and...

Rutan, Burt

(Encyclopedia)Rutan, Burt (Elbert Leander Rutan) ro͞oˈtăn [key], 1943–, American aerospace engineer, b. Portland, Oreg., grad. California Polytechnic Univ. (B.S. 1965). From 1965 to 1972 Rutan worked for the U...

Lockheed, Allan Haines

(Encyclopedia)Lockheed, Allan Haines, 1889–1969, American aviation pioneer, b. Niles, Calif., as Allan Loughead. He worked as a mechanic and a race car driver, then, following his first flight (1910), he became a...

Shanksville

(Encyclopedia)Shanksville, borough (1990 pop. 235), Somerset co., SW Pa., on the Stonycreek River, which is spanned by an 1881 covered bridge. It is situated in an agricultural area where corn, oats, and livestock ...

Montgolfier, Joseph Michel

(Encyclopedia)Montgolfier, Joseph Michel zhäk ātyĕnˈ [key], 1745–99, French inventors, brothers. Together they invented the first practical balloon. On June 5, 1783, they sent up at Annonay, near Lyons, a lar...

Eckener, Hugo

(Encyclopedia)Eckener, Hugo, 1868–1954, German airship designer and pilot, Ph.D. Univ. of Leipzig, 1892. As a journalist he covered early flights of Zeppelin's first rigid airships. He joined (1908) Zeppelin's co...
 

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