Air & Space Smithsonian – September 2019

LETTERS

Beauty and the Beast

You mentioned some of the

Northrop Grumman EA-6B’s

nicknames in “The Prowler’s

Last Prowl” (Aug. 2019).

Other nicknames for the

bird were “Double Ugly” in

reference to the A-6 Intruder

as “Ugly,” and “The Bridge

Club,” for the four crewmem-

bers on board. One time,

while taxiing out at an Air

Force Base in support of a

flight of A-10s, a voice came

on the radio and stated, “We

took a vote to see who was

the ugliest, you or us, and

you won.”

D.E. ECHLIN

CAPTAIN, U.S. NAVY (RET.)

via email

Who Was First?

The article “Why the Soviets

Lost” (June/July 2019) caught

my attention. The article

credits the Soviets with mak-

ing the “first soft landing

on the moon.” No date is

given. I have been under the

impression that the United

States was first, with the

launch of Surveyor I by

Atlas-Centaur 10 on May

30, 1966. I was a member of

the launch team, and we were

under the impression that we

had beaten the Soviets with

the first soft landing on the

moon. Perhaps the Soviet

landing was not public at

the time? Can you provide

more details?

RICHARD DUNLAP

via email

The editor replies: The Soviet

Luna 9 was the irst, on

February 9, 1966. It survived the

landing—a “soft” landing at 14

mph, as opposed to crashing like

the Rangers—and returned pic-

tures from the moon’s surface.

Aircraft v. Eagle

Having just returned from

Juneau, Alaska, I was struck

by your short piece in the

newissueonmidairswith

eagles(“CollisionCourse:

BaldEaglesLiketoLounge

atAirports,”Aug.2019).

Therearemorebaldeaglesin

Juneauthantherearefloat-

planes,andsureenough,in

1987, an Alaska Airlines 737

had a near-midair with an

eagle just after takeoff. The

startled eagle avoided the jet

but dropped the large salmon

it was carrying in its sharp

talons. The fish hit one of the

airliner’s overhead cockpit

windows. It is said to be the

only known aircraft-ver-

sus-fish collision.

Juneauites claim that the

airplane was renamed the

Salmon-Thirty-Salmon.

STEPHAN WILKINSON

via email

Correction

“The Helicopter Goes to

War” (Aug. 2019) incor-

rectly stated that the term

“helicopter” did not exist until

1948.Thetermoriginatedin

the1860s,notesNationalAir

andSpaceMuseumcurator

RogerConnor,andwasa

regularpartofthelexicon,

viaJulesVerne,fromthe

1880sonward.

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