The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1638: Floating Airports
Engines of Our Ingenuity

The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1638: Floating Airports

B2Upper-intermediateOctober 4, 20263 min
  • Technology

Episode: 1638 Floating airports: How to fly the ocean in 1930. Today, let us hop across the ocean.

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This programming is sponsored by Downtown Houston.

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Today let us hop across the ocean.

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B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

A1 25%A2 50%B1 20%B2 5%C1 0%
  • 95% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 141 words a minute: a natural pace.
  • 26 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

This programming is sponsored by Downtown Houston. This is the Engines of Our Ingenuity, made possible by the Friends of KUHF, Houston. Today let us hop across the ocean. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run,

0:20

and the people whose ingenuity created them. Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in 1927 by turning a specially designed Ryan monoplane into a flying gas tank. Over half its takeoff weight was gasoline. When Bert Rutan's airplane Voyager circled the world nonstop in 1986, its takeoff weight was 80% fuel. Fuel in

0:45

a three-stage rocket greatly outweighs the space shuttle it carries into orbit. Any Any long trip that has to be made without refueling poses a problem of diminishing return. At the time of Lindbergh's flight, it appeared that crossing the Atlantic non-stop would be very inefficient.

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