Tuesday morning, a NASA pilot managed to set down a WB-57 aircraft as smoothly as you've ever seen at Ellington Airport in Houston after the landing gear failed to deploy. With no brakes, it had to be a butt-puckering experience, but no one was injured. Luckily, the runway was longer than the video.
The WB-57, also known as the Martin B-57 Canberra, is a superlative plane. The B-57 was the first jet that could cross the Atlantic without refueling, and made the trip in just four hours and 40 minutes in 1851. It was used extensively as a bomber in Vietnam. The WB-57 variant could fly at altitudes up to 62,000 feet. That's why, when the Air Force phased out the plane, NASA snapped up the remaining three WB-57s in America. They are used for high-altitude research like collecting near-space samples and observing spacecraft launches. Read more about the WB-57 at Ars Technica. (via Fark)
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