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

  1. military
  2. design
  3. speed
  4. water
  5. impact
  6. supersonic
  7. commercial
  8. 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

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
commercial flights 3
sonic boom 2
fuel economy 2

Important Words

  1. advances
  2. aircraft
  3. alternative
  4. altitudes
  5. boom
  6. break
  7. cancel
  8. commercial
  9. conduct
  10. darpa
  11. decades
  12. design
  13. efficiency
  14. energy
  15. experiment
  16. extending
  17. failed
  18. feasible
  19. features
  20. flights
  21. flying
  22. fuels
  23. high
  24. impact
  25. long
  26. military
  27. modifying
  28. nasa
  29. nose
  30. planes
  31. problem
  32. producing
  33. proposed
  34. reduce
  35. research
  36. rest
  37. sets
  38. shape
  39. shockwave
  40. shown
  41. smaller
  42. solve
  43. sonic
  44. speed
  45. spike
  46. steady
  47. stop
  48. supersonic
  49. synthetic
  50. technologies
  51. turn
  52. water
  53. waves
  54. wings