The Drooping Wings

The long runway of a desert air base in California on a cold December morning, low gold sun from the left, a strange white aircraft at the start of its takeoff roll, an enormously long and very thin straight wing stretching far out to both sides, its tips bending down under the weight of fuel almost to the runway, two long slender booms running forward from the wing to a narrow front wing at the nose, an upright fin at the rear of each boom, a small central pod with a bubble canopy and a propeller at each end, every surface plain and unmarked, two ground crew seen from directly behind.