AVIATION: Tricks of the Trade

Between pilots and their airplanes are secrets that no groundling can ever know. Each airplane has special tricks and foibles, and the pilot who fails to seek them out and test them will one day discover them in time of peril, and perhaps too late. Each pilot, for his part, learns that the well-designed airplane is more forgiving of his own tricks, foibles and lapses of good sense than he has a right to dream. Last week a great airplane's tricks met piloting foibles in a combination that was a heroic test of both sides, almost with a happy...

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