The Flying Car, 2
Vocabulary
| decade | dream (3) | notched up |
| fully | range (2) | convertible |
| air | notch (2) | fly/flew/flown |
| invent | strip (2) | take/took/taken |
| design | process | correspondent |
| spin | fill it up | take off (2) |
| fill | pump (2) | sit/sat/sat |
| touch | humanity | take for a spin |
| engine | prototype | take/took/taken |
| speed | ground | horsepower |
| invent | per hour | hats off (2) |
| pre- | step (2) | generation |
| voyage | model (3) | feel/felt/felt (2) |
| traffic | concrete | know/knew/known |
| wing | equipped | give/gave/given |
| retract | reinstate | take to a whole new level |
| billion | get on (3) | convertible |
| estate | mean (3) | long/longer/longest |
| fit (3) | altitude | lose/lost/lost |
| project | concern | remain (2) |
| safety | aircraft | button (2) |
| fairly | trick (2) | advantage |
| induce | accident | begin/began/begun |
| fail | next step | consultant |
| sector | million | phenomenal |
| worth | trillion | manufacture |
| traffic | slightly | spend/spent/spent (2) |
| afford | point (3) |
Video
Transcript
News Anchor: “Is been the dream of many for decades, but is it finally becoming reality? A fully convertible, flying car recently made its first voyage between two international airports. And has now notched up for more than 40 hours in the air.
The air car is the work of a Slovak inventor and designer who’s been working on the project for three decades.
He took our correspondent Rob Cameron for a spin.”
It sounds like a sports car. It looks like a sports car — and you can even fill it up with regular petrol at the pump.
This supercar is equipped with a super feature like no other: at the touch of a button in a process that takes two minutes and 50 seconds, it does this.
The first prototype has a 160 horsepower engine and easily reaches regular motorway speeds on the ground.
In the air it flies at an altitude of two-and-a-half-thousand meters (2,500 m) at speeds of up to 170 kilometers per hour.
But the next step is a pre-production model with a range of 1,000 kilometers.
Professor Stefan Klein, AirCar Inventor: “For me, what’s important is the feeling of freedom. I’m from a generation that knows what it is to lose one’s freedom. The car gave us great freedom.
But now we just sit in traffic. The flying car could reinstate this freedom and take it to a whole new level.
Professor Klein says the real advantage of the air car is its convertibility — when the wings are retracted, it’s only slightly longer than a regular estate car, meaning it’ll fit in your garage. And all you’ll need to take off is a strip of grass or concrete.
All this is still at the prototype stage. The big concern of course remains safety.
Steve Wright, Evert in Aircraft Systems, University of the West of England: “We can make an aircraft fly fairly easily; but the humanity’s been doing that for 120 years now.
The trick now here in the 21st century is doing it safely. Now by safely I mean getting on for a million hours of flight time before we have an accident induced by the aircraft failing for some reason.
So hats off to professor Klein. But his work is only just beginning.”
The AirCar is not the only flying car in development. Consultants Morgan Stanley say the sector could be worth one and a half trillion dollars within two decades. Big manufacturers are clearly interested.
So could we really be spending more time in the air than in traffic?
Rob Cameron BBC news, Slovakia.
News Anchor: “It looks phenomenal, doesn’t it? I would love one of those at some point. I didn’t know if I could ever afford it.
Questions
Airplane. Convertible, flying-cars are pure science fiction that only exist in James Bond movies. True or false?
Jet Plane. Was a flying-car prototype was developed in Switzerland?
Helicopter. Do the flying-car require special aviation fuel? Can it only fly on special aviation fuel?
Car, Automobile. Only a team of technicians can convert the car into an airplane and vice versa. Is this right or wrong?
Hot-Air Balloon. For the inventor, Stefan Klein, is the most important quality of the airplane car-power, speed and aerodynamics? “I’m from a generation that knows what it is to lose one’s freedom.” What does this mean?
Rocket, Spaceship, Spacecraft. The scientists and engineers are focused entirely on boosting the flying-car’s speed, aerodynamics and maneuverability. Is this correct or incorrect?
Space Station. Will the flying-car remain a fad for hobbyists and flying enthusiasts? What is the potential for the flying-car market?
Hang glider. BBC journalists and reporters earn lots of money. They have high salaries. What do you think?
Parachute. I have flown in an airplane. Yes or no?
Motorcycle. Is this flying-car a great innovation? Is it practical or impractical for commercial usage?
Moped, Scooter. I would like to own, drive and fly a flying car. Yes or no?
Bike, Bicycle. What might happen in the future?
Unicycle. What should engineers, companies and governments do?
