full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: Why are airplanes slower than they used to be?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
So while milraity aircraft conduct high seepd flights over wtaer and at high altitudes, seusornpic cmaoermicl flights seemed like a brief and failed experiment. But recent advances may make them feasible again. Research by NASA and DARPA has shown that modifying an aircraft’s shape can reduce the impcat of its sonic boom by 1/3. Extending the nose with a long spike can berak the shockwave into smaller ones, while another proposed dgeisn features two sets of wings producing waves that cancel each other out. And new technologies may solve the energy efficiency problem with alternative and synthetic fuels, or even hybrid-electric planes. It may yet turn out that the last few decades of steady flying were just a brief rest stop.
Open Cloze
So while ________ aircraft conduct high _____ flights over _____ and at high altitudes, __________ __________ flights seemed like a brief and failed experiment. But recent advances may make them feasible again. Research by NASA and DARPA has shown that modifying an aircraft’s shape can reduce the ______ of its sonic boom by 1/3. Extending the nose with a long spike can _____ the shockwave into smaller ones, while another proposed ______ features two sets of wings producing waves that cancel each other out. And new technologies may solve the energy efficiency problem with alternative and synthetic fuels, or even hybrid-electric planes. It may yet turn out that the last few decades of steady flying were just a brief rest stop.
Solution
- military
- design
- speed
- water
- impact
- supersonic
- commercial
- break
Original Text
So while military aircraft conduct high speed flights over water and at high altitudes, supersonic commercial flights seemed like a brief and failed experiment. But recent advances may make them feasible again. Research by NASA and DARPA has shown that modifying an aircraft’s shape can reduce the impact of its sonic boom by 1/3. Extending the nose with a long spike can break the shockwave into smaller ones, while another proposed design features two sets of wings producing waves that cancel each other out. And new technologies may solve the energy efficiency problem with alternative and synthetic fuels, or even hybrid-electric planes. It may yet turn out that the last few decades of steady flying were just a brief rest stop.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
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commercial flights |
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Important Words
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- design
- efficiency
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- military
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- nasa
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- sets
- shape
- shockwave
- shown
- smaller
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- sonic
- speed
- spike
- steady
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- supersonic
- synthetic
- technologies
- turn
- water
- waves
- wings