Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

he fished in his pocket for a cough drop and grabbed the cyanide pill instead and popped it into his mouth. He started to suck on it. Luckily he realized his mistake in a split second and spit it out in horror before it could take effect. Had he bit down he would have died instantly and crashed right into Red Square

We were issued the pill in case of capture and torture and all that good stuff, but given the option whether to use it or not

bending instability in flight known as aeroelastic divergence, a fancy way of describing wings flapping like a seagull’s and possibly tearing off.