Essential vocabulary:

1. haul– транспортировка

2. to confirm – утверждать

3. to scrap - выбрасывать

4. to withdraw– устранять, убирать

5. to announce- объявлять

6. in favor– в пользу

7. viable - жизнеспособный

8. hastily - поспешно

9. to purchase– покупать, приобретать

10. leasing– лизинг, аренда

11. newly-made– современный, новый

12. tocompete(competitor) – соперничать, соревноваться (соперник)

13. foremost- первый

14. to engage– занимать, задействовать

15. to remark– замечать, говорить

16. to promise- обещать

17. nevertheless– все равно, тем не менее

18. duetotechnicalfailure– из-за технической неполадки

19. togetridofsmth. – избавиться от чего-либо

20. accident – несчатный случай

21. to take advantage of smth. – воспользоваться чем-либо

22. unexpected situation – непредвиденная, неожиданная ситуация

23. to occur– втречаться, происходить

24. to remove– устранять, убирать

25. airworthiness – достойный, заслуживающий внимания

26. aircarrier– предназначенный для пассажирских перевозок

27. decade- десятилетие

28. full-package services – полный пакет услуг

29. up-to-date– современный

I. Answer the following questions:

1. What did our Transportation Minister announce?

2. What two alternatives do Russian companies have?

3. What decision did our Aeroflot make?

4. What Russian aircrafts are the most popular in Middle East countries and in Cuba?

5. What was the main reason of the most crashes of our aircrafts?

6. What Russian passenger airliner was certified to English standards of airworthiness?

7. How many TU-154s have been produced since 1972?

8. Do you consider our aircrafts the best ones in the world? If yes/no why?

II. Find the English equivalents of the following phrases in the text:

• решающий фактор

• современные самолеты

• приобретать бывшие в употреблении самолеты

• лидирующие российские производители

• авиакатастрофа

• разбиться из-за технической неполадки

• результат человеческой ошибки

• сымитировать ситуацию

• развитие гражданских авиалиний

• стать соперником

• многообещающие проекты

• лучшая тренировка для пилотов

• в течение нескольких десятилетий

• пользоваться большей популярностью

• предлагать современные самолеты

III. Make up your own sentences with the several phrases listed above.

IV. Look at the group of words below. Which word is the odd one?

1. a) passenger b) aircraft c) airliner d) plane

2. a) crash b) accident c) failure d) error

3. a) pilot b) passenger c) aircraft d) stewardess

4. a) producer b) manufacturer c) purchaser d) supplier

5. a) to design b) to offer c) to create d) to develop

6. a) project b) development c) design d) construction

7. a) newly-made b) modern c) used d) up-to-date

Airplanes and security

A few hundred years ago the main forms of transport were walking or riding a horse, donkey, camel and elephant, depending on where you lived.

Nowadays, in most countries long journeys involve some form of motorized transport. People today tend to travel longer distances, more often and at much higher speeds. As a result the world has shrunk over the last century and we now live in a global economy.

There are great advantages in this, but there is a down side too. More travel has also resulted in noise and air pollution, increased stress and damages to local environments and the larger ecosystem.

I am going to tell you about airplane travel. It is the fastest, to my thinking, more convenient means of travelling, because it saves our time and sometimes money. For instance, in the USA, if you travel from east coast to the west by air jet, it results cheaper for you than to travel by train.

In 1903, the Wright brothers made the first controlled machine-powered flight. It only lasted 12 seconds but changed the world forever.

A century later, air travel is no longer a miracle; it's something, we take for granted. One billion air passengers now fly every year — that's equivalent to a sixth of the world's population.

Is it safety to travel by plane? Before September, 11,2001, it used to be a relatively safe travel.

On September, 11, terrorists attacked on America. Since then security at airports and in the skies has been under scrutiny. That day four passenger planes were hijacked, more than 4,000 people killed.

On busy summer's days, thousands planes travel through skies. To make sure everything runs smoothly, there are air traffic control centres. In addition, every airport has an air traffic control tower. Every square meter of airspace is allocated to an air traffic controller. As an aircraft travels through the air, it is monitored by the controller responsible for that sector of airspace.

To calm fears about terrorist hijacks, airports are looking into new technologies that reveal passengers' identities.

Previously in the US, less than 10% of luggage was screened. Under new legislation, every item must be checked by one of three following methods: sniffer dogs, bomb detection machines, extensive manual searches. Around the globe, security firms are working on new devices that can detect materials such as ceramics — which can be made into guns. One such scanning camera has been developed in Britain. It uses thermal imaging technology originally created to help pilots see through fog and cloud.  

Vocabulary: to depend on — зависеть от чего-л. to involve — вовлекать to tend — иметь тенденцию to shrink (shrank, shrunk) — зд. сокращаться advantage — преимущество air pollution — загрязнение воздуха to increase — увеличивать ' damage — повреждение, ущерб environment — окружающая среда convenient — удобный air jet — реактивный самолет machine-powered flight — управляемый полет на машине miracle — чудо to take for granted — воспринимать что-либо как само собой разумеющееся security — безопасность scrutiny — зд. находиться под пристальным контролем/ вниманием to hijack — угонять самолет to run smoothly — пройти гладко air traffic control tower — башня авиадиспетчера to allocate — размещать, распределять aircraft — авиалайнер to monitor — проверять, контролировать to calm fears — развеять страхи to reveal — выявить, раскрыть identity — личность to screen — демонстрировать на экране, отображать a sniffer dog — собака-ищейка thermal imaging — термальное изображение

 

True or false:

1. A few hundred years ago the main forms of transport were jeeps.

2. Airplane travel doesn’t save our time and money because it’s inconvenient means of travelling.

3. The Lumier brothers made the first controlled machine-powered flight.

4. One billion air passengers now fly every year — that's equivalent to a sixth of the world's population.

5. On September, 11, terrorists attacked on Australia.

6. Every airport has an air traffic control tower.

7. On busy summer's days, thousands planes travel through space.

8. Thermal imaging technology was created to help pilots see through fog and cloud.

Questions:

1. What was the main means of transport a few centuries ago? 2. How did travels affect ecology? 3. Is it a miracle to travel by plane today? 4. Is it safety to travel by plane? 5. How do they make sure everything runs smoothly? 6. Why are the airports looking into new technologies that reveal passengers’ identities? 7. What are the main methods of baggage checking? 8. What are security firms working on today?

MiG

MiG is officially ANPK imeni A.I. Mikoyana also called ANPK MiG formerly OKB-155 Russian aerospace design bureau that is the country's major producer of jet fighter aircraft. It developed the family of technologically advanced MiG aircraft, including the Soviet Union's first jet fighter. The MiG design bureau is part of the state-owned multifirm aerospace complex VPK MAPO (Military-Industrial Complex–Moscow Aircraft Production). Headquarters are in Moscow.

The MiG design bureau is institutionally part of the larger MiG Aircraft Building Corporation. The latter corporation employs 15,000 people, 2,500 of whom work for the design bureau. Since its formation at the beginning of World War II, the bureau has been involved in about 250 different aircraft projects, of which 120 reached the construction stage. In that time, its main manufacturing plant in Moscow has built more than 15,000 aircraft. At the start of the 21st century more MiG-designed fighter aircraft, accounting for roughly 20 percent of the world's fighters, were in service than any other type. The company also has a subsidiary production facility at Lukhovitsy. The MiG and Sukhoy design bureaus evenly share the Russian fighter market, but hard times in the 1990s prompted the former to engage in vigorous marketing abroad to countries in the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe and to diversify modestly into the civilian passenger plane market.

The company had its start in 1939, when the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the formation of a department within the Moscow-based design bureau of the prominent aviation designer Nikolay N. Polikarpov to develop a new military fighter. Chosen to lead the project was a promising engineer in the bureau, Artem I. Mikoyan, who in turn requested Mikhail I. Gurevich, a close colleague, as his deputy. The two men, possessed of complementary skills and personalities, would remain associated throughout most of their successful and prolific careers. Their first design was the I-200 single-engine, high-altitude interceptor, which first flew in 1940 and which eventually bore the name MiG-1 (MiG being a formation of the first letters of Mikoyan and Gurevich plus i, the Russian word for “and”). An improved version, the MiG-3, soon followed. In 1942 the MiG department was reorganized as an independent design bureau with an aircraft plant in Moscow and given the designation OKB-155 (Experimental Design Bureau 155).

Because Germany did not mount many strategic bombing raids against the Soviet Union in World War II, few early MiG interceptors saw action in their primary role, and it was only in the postwar era that the design bureau grew rapidly in size and influence. Using technology captured from the Germans after the war, Mikoyan and Gurevich produced the first Soviet jet fighter, the MiG-9, which first flew in 1946. During the Cold War, OKB-155 developed some of the U.S.S.R.'s most notable high-speed jet fighters. Between the mid-1940s and late 1950s it created the MiG-15 (which shocked Western forces in the Korean War with its speed and agility), the MiG-17 (which reached supersonic speeds in tests), the MiG-19 (the first mass-produced Soviet supersonic fighter), and the MiG-21 (capable of about twice the speed of sound). The design bureau produced more than 9,000 MiG-21s in as many as 32 versions for the air forces of the Soviet Union and more than 40 other countries and licensed a version for production in China. The last major fighters designed under Mikoyan's leadership were created in the 1960s. They included the technologically sophisticated MiG-23 interceptor, the first Soviet operational variable-wing jet fighter, and the MiG-25 interceptor, capable of three times the speed of sound.

The bureau underwent leadership changes in the 1960s and '70s. Gurevich retired in 1964, and Mikoyan died in 1970 and was succeeded by his deputy Rostislav A. Belyakov. With Belyakov at the helm, the organization, which in 1978 was renamed to honour Mikoyan, produced several new fighter aircraft for the Soviet Union. They included the MiG-29 attack light interceptor and the all-weather MiG-31 fighter-interceptor, both of which first flew in the 1970s. In the late 1980s the formal name of the design bureau was changed to ANPK imeni A.I. Mikoyana (Aviation Scientific and Production Complex named after A.I. Mikoyan), although it remained commonly known as MiG.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the company, like many other former Soviet defense enterprises, restructured its operations. In 1995 the Russian government established MAPO-MiG (Moscow Aircraft Production Organization-MiG) by combining aircraft production plants with the design bureau. The following year Russian President Boris Yeltsin established the giant VPK MAPO, which consolidated 12 major aerospace firms including MAPO-MiG, as a single entity that could focus on research and development, manufacturing, and marketing of aircraft, engines, avionics systems, and other aerospace products. In the late 1990s MAPO-MiG was beset by financial embezzlement scandals, fierce competition from Sukhoy, major layoffs, and the resignations of several senior designers. In 1999, as part of a general restructuring, the Russian government renamed MAPO-MiG as the MiG Aircraft Building Corporation.

To survive in an extremely strained post-Communist economy, the company turned mostly to export sales of modernized versions of the MiG-29. Despite the lack of government interest, it continued to develop advanced fighter concepts, including the 1.42 multifunctional fifth-generation fighter. Also known as the 1.44I, the aircraft made its first flight in 2000.