Write your own encyclopedia article on glider

Speaking

You are going on a balloon flight. Tell who and what you would like to take with you. Follow the plan.

1. Place of Destination

2. Approximate Flight Duration

3. Membership

4. Food

5. Clothes

6. Any other things

UNIT 4

HISTORY OF AERONAUTICS

Preparing to Read

Quiz Time

You are taking part in an International Olympiads on Aeronautics as a representative of SSAU. Do the following quiz and mark the statements as true (T) or false (F).

	Aeronautics is an ancient science.	T	F		Airplanes Tu and Il were named after the names of their inventors.	T	F
	M.V.Lomonosov was an outstanding scientist, developing aircraft design.	T	F		The astronaut that made the first human step on the surface of the Moon was Armstrong.	T	F
	Leonardo da Vinci made the first drawings of flying machines.	T	F		Popov invented the first artificial satellite.	T	F
	K.E. Tsiolkovsky was famous because he was deaf.	T	F		The first cosmonaut in the history of mankind was Yu.Gagarin.	T	F
	The first cosmonaut in history was a woman.	T	F		The Wright brothers made the first Zeppelin, named after one of the brothers.	T	F

Compare your answers with those of your partner’s. Add one sentence of your own to each statement.

In groups, think about 5 sciences the future aircraft designer should know very well.

Sharing Information

A) Select the qualities you think an aircraft designer should possess. Use the dictionary.

- creative thinking

- luxuriant imagination

- assiduity

- patience

- independence

- decisiveness

- industry

- strength of mind

- neophilia

- riskiness

B) Rate the qualities from most important to least important (1-10).

Together with a partner, briefly share your opinion concerning the traits of character the future aircraft designer should have.

· interrupt your partner’s opinion

· encourage him/her to say more

· try to show your personal opinion

These phrases might be helpful:

Expressing opinion

· To my mind … · As far as I know … · In my opinion … · You are quite right … · You are not quite right … · I think so … · I don’t think so … · It seems to me that …

Conquering the Sky

Answer the questions below.

1) What aircraft designers do you know?

2) Which of them are connected with the very beginning of the flying machine era?

3) What were the types of the first flying machines?

4) What are the useful and useless aerodynamic forces, the aircraft designer should consider?

2. Scan the below telegram to answer the questions:

1) Who was the telegram from?

2) Who was the telegram addressed to?

3) When was it sent?

4) How many flights were mentioned in it?

5) What telegram company was this telegram sent by?

Reading

Read the following text. Match the subtitles 1-8 with parts of the text A-E. Mind there’s 3 extra subtitles you do not need.

1.Family Life

2.A Toy Helicopter

3.A Historic Event

4.A Famous Astronomer

5.An Elegant Machine

6.Observation Birds

7.Weight and Power: the Critical Equation

8.Great Fame

Conquering the Sky

A.The flying machine designed and built by the Wright brothers back in Dayton, Ohio was delivered to Kitty Hawk in pieces. They began by digging out and repairing the wooden hangar they had built to house themselves and the glider they had tested the previous year. The weather was just right: on the first day they carried out 75 flights from the highest dunes, relieved to see they hadn’t lost their piloting skills in the meantime. They knew that if they wanted to fly under power, they had to master the still mysterious art of piloting.

Local workers constructed a new wooden hangar, where Wilbur and Orville could assemble their new machine. The engine-powered “Flyer”, as they had christened it, was too heavy to roll down the beach for a takeoff. So they built a 60-foot takeoff “monorail” of iron-clad wood beams. The Flyer would use this rail to take off.

B. The Flyer weighted in at 700 pounds – still too much, since according to their calculations, it could weigh no more than 625 pounds including engine, propeller and pilot. The excess weight had them worried. The engine had a certain power reserve, but they weren’t sure how much. In fact, the engine was both a major concern and a source of pride. Since no manufacturer had been able to supply them with a powerplant meeting their specifications for a reasonable price, they had machined all the parts themselves. Back in 1900, the brothers had traveled to New York to look at the engines powering two early French cars. They immediately reached several conclusions: they would need four cylinders to develop the necessary 20 horsepower; but automotive engines were too heavy and the front-mounted radiator wasn’t exactly aerodynamic!

They would have to start from scratch, especially to reduce weight. The result was a mixture of some very modern techniques, and some that were more conventional. The engine block was made of aluminum, an extremely lightweight material, but still relatively unknown at the time. They replaced the carburetor by what they called a “fuel injection device”. Transmission to the propeller would be by bicycle chains and gears! The radiator was made of long, flat tubes. From today’s perspective, is still surprising that it took most other constructors nearly 20 years to learn their lesson from the Wright’s efforts to reduce aerodynamic drag, and finally get rid of the frontal, non-faired radiators. On the other hand, cooling was neglected on the Wrights’ engine, and the ignition device not very effective. In the end, the engine weighed in at 81.4 kilos and delivered 16 horsepower at 1,090 rpm on startup. Once the engine warmed up, power declined rapidly, in just a minute or so, to a steady 12 horsepower.

The Wright brothers made the first flight in history on December 17 and almost the first thing they did was to send a telegram home to their father.

The next day, the brothers finished dismantling their Flyer and returned to their home city of Dayton, to celebrate Christmas with their family.

C. Wilbur and Orville were very close as children and had the same penchant for tinkering with mechanical objects. They claimed that their interest in aviation dated back to 1878, when their father brought home a toy helicopter. The helicopter became their favorite toy. Starting out as printers, they would later open a bicycle shop and create their own brand in 1896. Both imaginative and manually dexterious, they had a number of inventions to their credit, including a piston engine to drive the machine tools in their workshops. They would prove to be very clever mechanics, and at the same time, they were building up extensive experience in their own workshops.

Then Wilbur wrote to the famous research organization, requesting the bibliography of publications on aeronautics. The book “Experiments in Aerodynamics” became bedside reading for Wilbur. For some time already, the two brothers had returned to their teenage dream of building a heavier-than-air flying machine. The accidental death of German aviation pioneer had awakened their interest, along with their discovery of an ornithology manual by French professor. Why, they asked themselves couldn’t man reproduce the mechanisms that allowed birds to fly?

D. Wilbur and Orville began to study a safer way of controlling and guilder. By observing the wing warping principle that certain predecessors had already discovered independently. They would apply this concept to the construction of their first kite.

The Wrights became obsessed with a single thought: flight! They began to construct a man-carrying glider.

In September 1900, on the recommendation of weather services, they decided to carry out glider experiments. The machine they tested the first year was a biplane. Flown without a pilot, it proved to be very satisfactory. It was controlled by ropes, like a huge kite. The following year they made a new machine. Wilbur noted that they had carried out 17 gliding flights without pilot and then the manned flight began.

E. In early October they began a long series of manned flight, lasting until the beginning of November. Over the thousand flights the pilot would lose control of the machine only once, breaking some of the wooden struts in rough landing. The longest flight lasted 26 seconds and stretched 622 feet. Orville and Wilbur were learning the art of piloting, which demands skilled control over the rudder and wings at every single moment. Reflexes have to be both fast and sure. The many photos taken by the brothers show an elegant glider, with wings as diaphanous as those of a butterfly, and with an “airframe” similar to that of future biplanes, very different in fact from the complicated and unrealistic machines imagined by utopian writers in previous centuries.

During the winter of 1902-03, they turned to the design of an engine for their planned aeroplane. Having analyzed and resolved various aerodynamic issues, they focused on questions of the propeller shape and engine power.

After December 17, 1903, they could no longer escape publicity or celebrity. A new life had begun.

Comprehension Check