(美音版)新概念英语第四册：Lesson29Thehovercraft.docxVIP

（美音版）新概念英语第四册： Lesson 29 Thehovercraft Lesson 29 The hovercraft 第 29 课 气垫船 First listen and then answer the following question. 听录音，然后回答以下问题。 What is a hovercraft riding on when it is in motion? Many strange new means of transport have been developed in our century, 本世纪已研制出很多新奇的交通工具， the strangest of them being perhaps the hovercraft. 其中最新奇的要数气垫船了。 In 1953, a former electronics engineer in his fifties, Christopher Cockerell, 1953 年，有一位 50 多岁名叫克里斯托弗 . 科克雷的原电子工程师， who had turned to boat-building on the Norfolk Broads, 改行在诺福克郡的湖泊地区从事造船业， suggested an idea on which he had been working for many years to the British Government and industrial circles. 他向英国政府和工业界提出了他研究多年的一项计划。 It was the idea of supporting a craft on a pad, or cushion, of low-pressure air, ringed with a curtain of higher pressure air. 他的设想是：用一个低压空气或软垫来支撑船体，软垫周围用高 压空气环绕。 Ever since, people have had difficulty in deciding whether the craft should be ranged among ships, planes, 自那以后，人们很难决定是否应该将这种运载工具列为轮船、飞 机， or land vehicles--for it is something in between a boat and an aircraft. 或是陆上交通工具，因为它是介于船和飞机之间。 As a shipbuilder, Cockerell was trying to find a solution to the problem of the wave resistance which wastes a good deal of a surface ships power and limits its speed. 作为一个船舶技师，科克雷尔在寻找解决波浪阻力的方法，因为 波浪阻力浪费掉了船在水面行驶的大量动力，从而限制了船的速度。 His answer was to lift the vessel out of the water by making it ride on a cushion of air, no more than one or two feet thick. 他的解决办法是把船体提离水面，让船在一个气垫上行驶，气垫 只有一两英尺厚。 This is done by a great number of ring-shaped air jets on the bottom of the craft. 船底装上大量环状喷气嘴以实现这个目的 It flies, therefore, but it cannot fly higher--its action depends on the surface, water or ground, over which it rides. 这样，船就能飞了，但飞不高。它的飞行限决于它所悬浮的水面 或地面。 The first tests on the Solent in 1959 caused a sensation. 1959 年，在苏伦特海峡实行的首次试航引起了轰动， The hovercraft travelled first over the water, then mounted the beach, climbed up the dunes, and sat down on a road. 气垫船先是在水面上行驶，后又登上海岸，爬上沙丘，最后停在 路上。 Later it crossed the Channel, riding smo