美国英语听力80篇1 Lesson08
Parachuting A(B)
Then your teacher shouts:"Go !"
You let go of the wing support and fall away from the plane.
You throw your head back, arms out, legs apart, as you learned.
You fall face forward toward the Earth below.
The sound of the engine and the scream of the wind disappear immediately.
There is only silence. You feel you are moving ... but not falling.
Quickly, a line tied to the plane pulls the parachute from its pack.
The lines of the parachute and the stiff straps of the parachute harness gently pull on your shoulders and legs.
You look up.
The big, colorful parachute is now fully open above you.
You look at it carefully to make sure it is not damaged.
Reaching over your head, you hold the left and right steering lines.
You pull the left one and begin a slow, smooth turn to the left.
You still have no feeling of falling.
You seem to hang in the air.
There is no longer any feeling of fear.
Yet your heart is racing with excitement.
You look around. You can see for many kilometers.
You look down between your feet.
You can see people, cars and buildings. They look very small.
For a few moments, you enjoy the view and the silence of your first parachute jump.
Too soon, it seems, it is time to prepare for landing.
You watch the landing area and move toward it by pulling on the left or right steering lines.
You aim for the soft sand in the center of the landing place.
Suddenly, the ground is moving quickly toward you.
You bring your feet together and bend your legs at the knee.
You reach high into the straps above your head. You keep your eyes straight ahead.
You hit the ground, gently, it seems.
And, as you learned, you roll on your side to the left and come back up onto your feet.
You gather up your parachute, being careful not to cross the many lines.
Your first sport parachute jump has been safe, successful and great fun.
The idea of the parachute is almost as old as man's dreams of flight.
The first known parachute designs were drawn by Italian artist and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci as early as 1495.
However, there is no evidence that Da Vinci ever built a parachute.
About 200 years ago,
Louis-Sebastian Lenormand of France invented a kind of parachute to save people at the top of tall burning buildings.
Historians say he jumped safely from a building in Montpellier, France, using his small device.
The first man to use a real parachute was Andre-Jacques Garnerin.
In 1797, he parachuted from a balloon 600 meters above the city of Paris.
There were more and more parachute designs after the invention of the airplane.
Early planes often crashed.
Fliers needed a safey device that would let them escape from a falling plane:
Parachutes saved many of their lives.
Parachutes became so dependable that military leaders believed they could be used to get soldiers to a battlefield quickly.
American General Billy Mitchell tested the idea in 1928.
Six soldiers jumped by parachute from an airplane.
When they landed, they set up a machine gun.
The test was a complete success.
And the parachute became a useful military tool.
In the past thirty years,parachuting has become an exciting sport.
It became popular when young men who learned to parachute in the military
wanted to continue jumping when they returned to civilian life.
Today, parachuting is enjoyed by men and women, young and old.
There are many kinds of sport parachuting. One of the most interesting is skydiving.
Jumpers leave the airplane as it flies more than 3,000 meters above the ground.
They fall for about one minute before opening their parachute.
They use their bodies,
and the air that rushes past them, to control their flight while falling.
They can speed up or slow down.
They can turn left or right.
They can turn over completely.
People who like to skydive say they can do anything an airplane can do,
except go upi Those who jump say skydiving is as close as man will ever come to free flight ... like that of birds.
Today's parachutes are very different from the device
Leonardo Da Vinci designed 500 years ago.
They come in many different shapes and colors.
One of the most popular is shaped more like a rectangle
than the traditional circle of old parachutes.
This one works much like a jet airplane.
It forces the air that passes through it to the back.
Large openings in the back can be opened or closed to steer it.
Some of the most modern kinds of parachutes give jumpers much more control over where they float.
Jumpers can fall gently down.
