UNIT 1

A Brief History of Flight

WORDLIST

Task 1.1. Translate the following words and phrases into your mother tongue. Learn the items
by their English definitions. You may want to use a good English-English dictionary.

1. Airfield (n) 11. Helicopter (n)

2. Airframe (n) 12. Hydrogen (n)
3. Airship (n) 13. Landplane (n)
4. Biplane (n) 14. Monoplane (n)
5. Cabin (n) 15. Ornithopter (n)
6. Commercial aviation (n) 16. Parachute (n)
7. Confine (v) 17. Refinement (n)
8. Flap (v) 18. Seaplane (n)
9. Flying boat (n) 19. Streamline (n)
10. Fluidity (n) 20. Zeppelin (n)

READING

Task 1.2. Read the text and speculate on a leading scientific advancement that contributed to
the growth of the commercial airline industry.

Amir R. Amir, I. Weiss and Dava Newman

Humans have been fascinated with flight throughout history. The graceful fluidity of birds in
flight motivated early inventors to mimic nature and propose vehicle designs that could carry
humans above the confines of earth’s surface. At first, people fashioned artificial wings and
flapped them with their arms. As that proved unsuccessful and engineering advanced,
mechanical mechanisms were used to flap the wings up and down, resulting in vehicles known
as ornithopters. The great Italian artist, architect, scientist, and engineer Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519) devoted much of his time to flight. His manuscripts contained some 160 pages of
descriptions and sketches of flying machines. His work includes the world’s first known designs
for the parachute and helicopter, and it is believed that he made models of both and many
have even flown them successfully. While da Vinci’s work was brilliant, the concept of an
ornithopter did not lead to the sustained flight.

It was only in the 18th century that humans achieved lighter-than-air flight. Then it took
another 120 years to achieve heavier-than air flight.

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 Leonardo da Vinci quotation and some sketches of orthocopter.

COMMERCIAL AIR TRANSPORT

As it is most probably known, airships were commercially successful in the early decades of
the 20th century. While zeppelins could fly not much more than 100 km/h, they could do so for
thousands of kilometers without having to land. To demonstrate the technical ability of the
Third Reich, the world’s largest rigid airship, the LZ-129 Hindenburg was built in 1936. The
Hindenburg had a length of 245m, a top speed of 135km/h and used some 200 000m3 of
hydrogen. On 6 May 1937, while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, the Hindenburg was
completely destroyed in a spectacular explosion attributed to a discharge of atmospheric
electricity in the vicinity of a hydrogen gas leak from the airship. This disaster marked the end
of the use of rigid airships in commercial air transportation.

The first scheduled flight of an airplane using an aircraft occurred on 1 January 1915 from St.
Petersburg, Florida to Tampa, Florida. This effort to develop commercial aviation was
premature since more advanced aircraft were needed. These became available following the
Armistice in 1918 when excess military aircraft were adapted for passenger transport and mail
service. The first regular commercial airline with passenger service was Germany’s Deutsche
Luftreederei, which began service from Berlin to Leipzig and Weimar in February 1919. In
October of that year KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) was founded in the Netherlands and is the
world’s oldest airlines.

The aircraft of the period could carry between two and eight passengers and offered little in
comfort. The passenger needed to wear warm leather clothes and gloves. Earplugs were
“strongly recommended”, and emergency landings were very frequent. But many refinements
in aircraft design were introduced, and significant improvements in performance were achieved
during the 1920s. Some of these were made by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
and Astronomics (NACA), the predecessor of NASA. The U.S. government created NACA in
1915 when it recognized how far it was behind Europe in aircraft production.

The most striking change was the conversation from biplanes to streamlined monoplanes
as well as the use of all-metal airframes.

One of the most coveted prizes in aviation at the time was the Orteig Prize for the first non-stop
flight between New York and Paris. Several men had lost their lives in pursuing this
accomplishment, but this did not deter the young U.S. mail pilot Charles A. Lindbergh. With
sponsors from St. Louis, Missouri. Lindbergh ordered a customized aircraft, the Spirit of Saint
Louis, from Ryan Aeronautical in San Diego, California. He left New York’s Roosevelt Field on

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20 May 1927 and flew solo along a northerly route to reach Paris’ Le Bourget airport 33,5hours
later. Winning the 25000₴ prize, Lindbergh became virtually overnight a hero in the United
States and Europe.

In 1916, William E. Boeing founded the Pacific Aero Products Company, which he renamed in
the following year the Boeing Airplane Company. During WWI the company developed flying
boats for the Navy. In 1933, the Boeing 247, an all-metal twin-engine low-wing monoplane, had
its maiden flight. The Boeing 247 is nowadays regarded as the first “modern” airliner and was
sought after many airlines. However, Boeing restricted the sale of the aircraft until the order
for its sister company United Airlines was fulfilled. This prompted competing carrier Trans
World Airlines (TWA) to persuade Boeing’s biggest rival, Douglas Aircraft Corporation, to
launch its own commercial series of aircraft in 1933. The DC-1 was an improvement over the
Boeing 247 with a better and more spacious cabin. It was refined to become the DC-2 and later
evolved into DC-3. Providing room for 21 passengers and featuring many small technical
advancements, the DC-3 became the favorite aircraft among airlines and pilots. One of its many
innovations was the introduction of an autopilot made by Sperry Gyroscope Company. By 1939,
DC-3s were carrying 90 percent of all commercial traffic around the world.

During the 1930s and 1940s, seaplanes often exceeded the size and range of landplanes. The
reason was that airfields were fairly limited in size, but this was not so for lakes or coastal
waters from which seaplanes could take-off and land. Another factor was that the aircraft still
lacked sufficient reliability, and airfields were scarce. A pioneer in the use of large seaplanes or
“flying boats” was Pan American Airways (Pan Am) which has been founded in 1927 to fly
airmail between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba. In June of 1938, Pan Am inaugurated
transatlantic passenger service with the “ultimate” flying boat, the Boeing 314, which carried
up to 74 passengers.

COMPREHENSION

Task 1.3. Read the text again and mark the following statements as true (T) or false (F).

1. The golden age of blimps was in the end of 1940s.

2. LZ-129 Hindenburg was a secret weapon of the Third Reich.
3. The first regular commercial airline with passenger service occurred in the United
States.
4. Back in the days it was obligatory to use headphones during the flight.
5. NASA implemented major changes and improvements to the aircraft in 1920s.
6. Charles A. Lindbergh was a mail pilot.
7. The Boeing 247 is nowadays regarded as the first “modern” airliner.
8. DC-4 became the favorite aircraft among airlines and pilots.

VOCABULARY PRACTICE

Task 1.4. Find the words in the text that mean the following:

1. The body of an aircraft including fuselage, wings and undercarriage excluding the
propulsion system –
2. A large aircraft without wings, filled with gas which is lighter than air, and driven by
engines (2 words) –
3. The quality of being able to flow freely –
4. An aircraft without wings that has large blades on top that go around. It can fly straight
up from the ground and can also stay in one position in the air –

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 5. A large plane that can take off and land on water (2 words) –
6. A chemical element. It is the lightest gas out of all elements and it combines with oxygen
to form water –
7. A flying machine designed to achieve flight by means of flapping wings –
8. A small change to something that improves it –
9. To give something a smooth even shape so that it can move quickly and easily through
air or water –

Task 1.5. Find the word in the text that are synonymous to the following:

1. Aerodrome –
2. Dirigible, aerostat –
3. Airplane with two sets of wings –
4. PAX area –
5. A branch of aviation intended to make profit –
6. Trap, frame –
7. Up & down –
8. Plane, aircraft –
9. Airplane with one set of wings –
10. Chute –

GRAMMAR NOTE

Common prefixes in academic writing

Task 1.6. Which prefix matches each section of the table?

Co inter multi out
pre trans

1. ____________active 4. __________break
come
dependent lying
personal weigh
related

2. ____________determined 5. __________education
-existent exist
judge -occur
-war operation
3. ____________border 6. __________dimensional
disciplinary
information lateral
national tasking
plant

Task 1.7. Replace the underlined part of sentences 1-12 using a word from 1.3. Make any other
changes that are necessary. Use the prefix in brackets is 1-6.
1. The study involved a team of researchers from many different subjects from across the
world. (multi)
2. She argues that the use of the mixed-ability pairs has a very positive effect. (out)

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 3. The success of teaching girls and boys in the same classroom in state schools led to its
introduction into the private sector. (co)
4. It was felt that benefits of using a computerized language test would be greater than any
problems associated with it. (out)
5. Commercial forest exploitation for timber is largely controlled by wealthy companies that
operate in several countries. (trans)
6. The problems of disease and malnutrition have an effect on each other. (inter)
7. People tend to form an opinion of others from their dress and appearance before hearing
what they have to say.
8. It can be difficult to differentiate between anxiety and depression because these
disorders tend to be found together.
9. Surgeons are now able to move entire faces and hands from one person to another.
10. Rabinovitz (2010) looked at the behavior of online American college students doing more
than one thing at the same time.
11. Bankoff(1993) has found an association between the establishment of satisfying
relationships with other people and academic achievement.
12. There is little incentive for voters to go to the polls if the outcome is already arranged.

TALKING POINT

1. In a few sentences discuss the advent of dirigibles and the responsible inventors.
Speculate on why we do not see blimps that carry hundreds of people flying.
2. What was the critical aerodynamic contribution that the Wright brothers implemented
in order to achieve the first heavier-than-air flight?
3. List two women pioneers of aviation and their accomplishments.
4. When did aviation become an industry? How did the for-profit organizations affect
science of flight?
5. List one scientific space probe.
6. What is the future of aviation in Lithuania and worldwide?