"Pushing The Envelope"
This phrase is used to refer to an aircraft being taken to, and perhaps beyond, its designated altitude and speed limits. By extension, this phrase may be used to mean testing other limits, either within aerospace or in other fields e.g. Plus ultra (motto).
Read more about this topic: Flight Envelope
Famous quotes containing the words pushing the, pushing and/or envelope:
“Hands and knees
Pushing the Bear grass, thousands
Of arrowhead leavings over a
Hundred yards.”
—Gary Snyder (b. 1930)
“It’s like pushing marbles through a sieve. It means the sieve will never be the same again.”
—Before the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami. As quoted in Crazy Salad, ch. 6, by Nora Ephron (1972)
“Geroge Peatty: I’m gonna have it, Sherry. Hundreds of thousands, maybe a half million.
Sherry Peatty: Of course you are, darling. Did you put the right address on the envelope when you sent it to the North Pole?”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)