National Affairs: He Wanted Wings

For one unsettling second U.S. Navy Lieut. John B. Barnes thought that the laws of aerodynamics had suddenly been repealed. There he was, climbing away from the runway at Italy's Capodichino Airport, and on each side of him the wing of his flashy new F8U Crusader jet was turned upright 6½ feet from the tips—as if parked on a cramped carrier deck. Why the tower had cleared him for take-off and how his plane had staggered into the air with the outboard wing panels folded up, he could not say. But there was no time to speculate. He rammed the throttle...

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