The airplane speed record returned to the U.S. last week after almost ten years in Europe. Veteran Army Test Pilot Colonel Albert Boyd, 40, made four three-kilometer (1.86 mi.) runs, with and against a light breeze, in a jet-propelled Lockheed P-80R over Muroc Dry Lake, Calif. His average speed: 623.8 m.p.h., only 7.8 m.p.h. faster than Britain's record, hung up in 1946.
That thin sliver of extra speed cost enormous effort. The P-80R, though designed as a practical military airplane rather than a souped-up racing job, is a refinement of Lockheed's P-80 (Shooting Star)....
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