Passage 28

Ultralight （超轻型的） airplanes are a recent development in aviation that provide what aviation enthusiasts have long been seeking: an inexpensive airplane that is easy to fly.The ultra light plane was born of the marriage of the hang glider and the go-kart（微型单座竞赛车）engine around 1974, when John Moody mounted a 12-horsepower go-kart engine on his IcarusII hang Glider.

Today's ultralights are not just hang gliders with engines; they are" air recreation vehicles."Modern ultralight planes use snowmobile engines that let them cruise at about 50 miles per hour, climb at about 500 feet per minute, and carry combined payloads of pilot and fuel up to about 200 pounds, which is about equal to an ultralight plane's weight when sold last year at prices ranging from $2, 800 to $7, 000.But the main reason for the increasing popularity of these aircrafts is not that they are inexpensive, but that they are fun to fly.

The modern ultralight plane would look very familiar to the earliest pioneers of aviation.Otto Lilienthal made more than 2000 flights in Germany in the 1890's in what were actually hang gliders.Octave Chanute designed and built many early hang gliders.Augustus Herring, Chanute's assistant, used these gliders as

models for a glider that he built for himself.On this Glider, Herring installed a compressed air motor and flew 267 feet in 1898.The Wright brothers'Flyer was the grandfather of today's ultralight planes.The pilot sat right out in the open, just as in modern ultralights, and used controls that were much the same as those used in today's machines.

Though most ultralight planes are used for pleasure flying, some are also used for crop dusting, aerial photography, and even military observation service.The likelihood is that further uses will be found for ultralight planes, but their greatest use will continue to be as air recreational vehicles.

1. The author seems to feel that ultralight airplanes are .

   1. a toy for the rich

   2. nothing but hang gliders

   3. a new development that meets the needs of aviation enthusiasts

   4. the most important development in aviation since the Wright

      brothers'Flyer

2. According to the passage, today's ultralight airplanes .

   1. are inexpensive but difficult to fly

   2. are more like go-karts than like hang gliders

   3. cannot climb as fast or as high as hang gliders

   4. are not too different from the earlier aircraft

3. The author compares John Moody's use of a go-kart engine on a hang

   glider to .

   1. a marriage

   2. the flight of Icarus

   3. cruising in a snowmobile

   4. soaring an gliding from a high altitude 4.Which of the following

      statements is an opinion?

1. Ultralight planes use snowmobile engines that let them cruise at about 50 miles per hour.

2. John Moody used a 12-horsepower engine to power his I carus II hang glider.

3. The use of ultralight planes will increase in such areas as crop dusting and aerial photography.

4. Otto Lilienthal made more than 2000 flights in Germany in the 1890's in what were actually hang gliders.

1. The author finds great similarity between .

   1. the weight of the hang glider and that of the ultralight air plane B)ultralight airplanes and military aircraft

1. the inventiveness of John Moody and that of Octave Chanute

2. the controls used in the Wright brothers'Flyer and those used in

   today's ultralight airplanes