AVIATION: Uncle Igor & the Chinese Top

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Russian-born Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky, the eminent early birdman and aircraft designer, has never forgotten a monumental nosebleed he suffered as a boy of ten in the Czarist city of Kiev. As he sat with cold compresses on his neck and waited miserably for his veins to close, he fell prey to an alarming thought: if his condition became chronic, he might never be able to become a flyer. One night a little later he dreamed of coursing the skies in the softly lit, walnut-paneled cabin...

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