Future aircraft
Activities
D. Listen to the teacher/CD carefully and complete the following sentences with appropriate words.
1. Thursday's flight will test another of the aircraft.
2. The plane is made of composite materials.
3. The plane will fly at speed.
4. In the flight, the body of the plane could reach 2,000 degree Celsius.
5. will melt at 2000 degree Celsius.
B. Read the news report adapted from the Guardian.
The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 (Falcon HTV-2) is the fastest plane ever built by human beings. It would fly from London to Sydney in less than an hour. Supersonic Concorde, by the way, could not fly at such a great speed. At the same time it would withstand temperatures of almost 2,000 degree C. This temperature is hotter than the melting point of steel.
The US Defense Agency will launch the Falcon HTV-2. First, they will set it on the back of a rocket. Then they will launch both into the space from an Air Force Base. The plan goes like this: engineers will launch the Falcon HTV-2 into the space on the back of a rocket; then they will detach the plane from the rocket; the plane Falcon will fly towards the Earth; engineers will guide and monitor it in its flight. The plane would fly at hypersonic speed of 13,000 mp/h. This speed is about 20 times the speed of sound.
The Falcon was born in 2003. It was born as part of a US military project. The project researched and built a special type of plane. The researchers wanted that the plane could reach any part of the world in less than an hour. They also wanted to use it for any purposes, military or civil. The plane was already tested in computer models.
The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 would be mankind's dream aircraft in the days to come.
Questions