Re:Macroscopic uses of Titanium (Score 1)

The story of the "barrel roll" is pretty famous here in Seattle, but it was (?late fifties?) with the 707 prototype, & NOT late sixties with the 747. I believe it was Tex Johnston (or some other famous test pilot working for Boeing). The plane was making a fly-by appearance at the annual Sea-Fair hydroplane races, and this was "The BIG" coming out appearance for the new jet. A lot of VIPs were in the audience just to see the jet. In his memoirs, Tex wrote about how he wanted to do something that would really show off his wonderful new toy (in other words sell the jet and save the company), so he picked a very flashy but relatively safe maneuver ... a barrel roll ... it is possible to do it so that it is a constant 1G stress force thru-out the whole maneuver ... the same force on the jet as if it were flying level. So without warning any of the company bigwigs, Tex did exactly that. And on the 2nd pass of the flyby, he did it AGAIN! Story goes that the Boeing president wanted to kill Tex from the reviewing stands, then he was shut-up by an impressed Airline President that said Tex was only doin' his job ... selling airplanes.