The Drooped Nose

A snow-covered test airfield near Moscow on the last afternoon of December, low pink-orange winter sun, a very long slender white supersonic airliner on tall landing gear, a long needle nose bent downward in front of the cockpit, one huge flat delta wing swept back in a single long line from beside the cockpit to the tail, under the middle of the wing four engines side by side in two large rectangular boxes, a tall thin tail fin, the whole airframe plain and unmarked white, snowbanks along the apron, a ground worker in a quilted jacket and fur hat seen from directly behind at a wheel chock.