At about half past eleven one evening this week I noticed a US Navy E-6B Mercury orbiting over the North Sea. Not “noticed” in the way of someone who happened to look up — I was on the sofa with a laptop balanced on one knee, and the orbit was being drawn for me, in slow careful circles, by a dashboard I had been building, in evenings and weekends, for the previous eight days. The aircraft is a survivable airborne command post for the strategic nuclear force. It does not normally show up on a...

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