美国英语听力80篇3 Lesson46

[00:08.05]Igor Sikorsky left Russia at the start of the revolution in 1917.
[00:15.54]He stayed for a while in Britain and France.
[00:19.54]Then he went to the United States.
[00:22.62]He arrived with little money and no real chances for work.
[00:28.63]America's aviation¹ industry was new and very small.
[00:34.30]There were no jobs.
[00:36.15]In 1923, however, he got help from a group of Russian exiles² in the United States.
[00:43.99]They gave him enough money to start his own aviation company, Sikorsky Aero Engineering⁴.
[00:52.04]It was on Long Island east of New York City.
[00:56.03]Sikorsky's greatest success during this period was designing seaplanes.
[01:02.48]These planes could land on ground or on water.
[01:06.90]They could fly long distances.
[01:09.83]The Pan³ American airline company used them to fly from North America to Central and South America.
[01:18.21]In 1929, the Sikorsky company became part of the United Aircraft Corporation⁵.
[01:26.83]The re-organized company produced a series of large planes known as flying boats.
[01:34.51]These planes were big enough and powerful enough to fly across oceans.
[01:41.64]They made it possible to move people and goods quickly from the' United States to Europe and Asia.
[01:49.92]Passengers on flying boats rested in soft seats.
[01:54.83]They ate hot meals.
[01:57.68]Air travel had become fun, as well as safe.
[02:01.73]By 1938, Igor Sikorsky decided⁶ to experiment with hellcopters again.
[02:10.38]It had been thirty years since his first unsuccessful attempts.
[02:15.03]Through those years, he had written down ideas for possible new designs.
[02:21.56]The first helicopter Sikorsky built in America was the VS300.
[02:28.61]It was a skeleton⁷ of steel tubes.
[02:31.61]In its first test flight, it rose about a meter off the ground. Sikorsky then tested nineteen more designs.
[02:42.06]The final design had one main rotator,or rotor.
[02:47.37]The rotor was connected to three long blades⁸ on top.
[02:52.15]These blades turned around like an album on a record player.
[02:57.82]They lifted the helicopter into the air.
[03:01.47]A smaller rotor, with shorter blades, was at the back end.
[03:06.62]Those blades turned around like the wheel of a car.
[03:10.77]They kept the body of the helicopter pointed⁹ forward.
[03:15.34]This remained the basic design of all Sikorsky helicopters.
[03:20.31]By 1941, the VS300 had set all world records for helicopter flight.
[03:28.93]Military versions¹⁰ were made and some were used in the last years of World War Two.
[03:35.56]Most people, however, still did not accept the new flying machine.
[03:41.34]They said the helicopter had to prove its worth.
[03:45.78]It did that during the war in Korea in the early 1950s.
[03:51.37]Helicopters take off straight into the air.
[03:55.34]They can land just about anywhere.
[03:58.39]They do not need long airport runways like planes.
[04:03.15]During the Korean War, helicopters flew into battle areas to rescue wounded soldiers.
[04:10.83]They flew the men quickly to medical centers set up away from the fighting.
[04:17.15]This greatly improved the men's chances of survival¹¹.
[04:22.01]Igor Sikorsky, the man most responsible for successfully designing and building helicopters,
[04:30.16]thought helicopters would be a common form of transportation.
[04:34.99]People, he said, would use them instead of automobiles¹².
[04:40.29]They would fly into a city, land on top of a building, go to work, then fly home again.
[04:48.05]This has not happened.
[04:50.80]Privately-owned helicopters are not common.
[04:54.61]Yet helicopters have proved their value in other ways.
[04:59.00]Companies use them to transport heavy equipment to hard-to-reach places.
[05:05.16]Farmers use them to put insect poisons on their crops.
[05:10.20]And emergency teams use them to rescue people from fires and floods.
[05:16.32]Igor Sikorsky continued as an engineering adviser¹³ to his aircraft company until he died in 1972.
[05:26.19]He was one of the best known and most respected leaders in international aviation.
[05:33.71]He received more than ninety major awards and honors¹⁴ from many countries and organizations.
[05:41.71]He always said, however, that his greatest satisfaction did not come from receiving honors.
[05:49.91]It did not come from being the first person to design new kinds of aircraft.
[05:55.94]Igor Sikorsky said his greatest satisfaction came from knowing

1 aviation   

n.航空，航空学，飞机制造业

参考例句：

• Ten years ago,they began to develop the aviation. 十年前，他们开始发展航空工业。
• Pilots of large aircraft are masters of aviation.大型飞行器的驾驶员是航空学方面的专家。

2 exiles   

流放，放逐，流亡( exile的名词复数 )； 长期离家[出国]； 被流放者，流亡国外者，背井离乡者

参考例句：

• There were many French exiles in England after the Revolution. 法国大革命后，有许多法国人流亡到英国。
• Political exiles had not been given indemnity from prosecution. 政治流放犯没有得到免予起诉的保护。

3 pan   

n.平底锅；v.严厉批评

参考例句：

• The water had all boiled away and the pan was burned.水煮干了，锅也烧坏了。
• The eggs were frying in the pan.鸡蛋正在锅里煎。

4 engineering   

n.工程，工程学，管理，操纵

参考例句：

• The science of engineering began as soon as man learned to use tools. 人类一学会使用工具,工程科学就开始了。
• It was the first great engineering works in the world. 这是世界上第一家大型的工程工厂。

5 corporation   

n.公司，企业&n.社团，团体

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation. 这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• The inflation did the corporation up. 通货膨胀使这个公司破产了。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 skeleton   

n.骨骼，框架，骨干，梗概，提要

参考例句：

• A long illness made a skeleton out of him.长期的卧病使他骨瘦如柴。
• Her notes gave us just the bare skeleton of her theory.她的笔记只给我们提供了她的理论的梗概。

8 blades   

n.刀口( blade的名词复数 )；（机器上旋转的）叶片；桨叶；（船桨的）桨叶

参考例句：

• the blades of a propeller 螺旋桨叶
• Stay well away from the helicopter when its blades start to rotate. 直升机的螺旋桨开始转动时，尽量离远点儿。

9 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

10 versions   

n.译本( version的名词复数 )；版本；（个人对事件的）描述；（原物的）变体

参考例句：

• There are two versions of the game, a long one and a short one. 这游戏有两个版本，一长一短。
• When both versions of the story were collated,major discrepancies were found. 在将这个故事的两个版本对照后，找出了主要的不符之处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 survival   

n.留住生命，生存，残存，幸存者

参考例句：

• The doctor told my wife I had a fifty-fifty chance of survival.医生告诉我的妻子，说我活下去的可能性只有50%。
• The old man was a survival of a past age.这位老人是上一代的遗老。

12 automobiles   

n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• When automobiles become popular,the use of the horse and buggy passed away. 汽车普及后，就不再使用马和马车了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Automobiles speed in an endless stream along the boulevard. 宽阔的林荫道上，汽车川流不息。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

13 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

14 honors   

n.礼仪；荣典；礼节； 大学荣誉学位；大学优等成绩；尊敬( honor的名词复数 )；敬意；荣誉；光荣

参考例句：

• He aims at honors. 他力求名誉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We did the last honors to his remains. 我们向他的遗体告别。 来自《简明英汉词典》