When the jet stream played on the tower’s upper reaches like a firehose slamming into a kid’s Tinkertoy contraption—when, in other words, the maximum possible crush was being imposed on the downwind legs—the wings on that side would be trimmed so as to lift the whole thing upward and relieve the strain. Performing a kind of aerodynamic jujitsu, redirecting the very energy that would destroy the tower to actively hold it up. The tower would become half building, half kite.
