The hovercraft
原文
Lesson 29
The hovercraft
What is a hovercraft riding on when it is in motion?
Many strange new means of transport have been developed in our century,
the strangest of them being perhaps the hovercraft.
In 1953, a former electronics engineer in his fifties, Christopher Cockerell,
who had turned to boat-building on the Norfolk Broads,
suggested an idea on which he had been working for many years to the British Government and industrial circles.
It was the idea of supporting a craft on a 'pad', or cushion, of low-pressure air, ringed with a curtain of higher pressure air.
Ever since, people have had difficulty in deciding whether the craft should be ranged among ships, planes,
or land vehicles--for it is something in between a boat and an aircraft.
As a shipbuilder, Cockerell was trying to find a solution to the problem of the wave resistance which wastes a good deal of a surface ship's power and limits its speed.
His answer was to lift the vessel out of the water by making it ride on a cushion of air, no more than one or two feet thick.
This is done by a great number of ring-shaped air jets on the bottom of the craft.
It 'flies', therefore, but it cannot fly higher--its action depends on the surface, water or ground, over which it rides.
The first tests on the Solent in 1959 caused a sensation.
The hovercraft travelled first over the water, then mounted the beach, climbed up the dunes, and sat down on a road.
Later it crossed the Channel, riding smoothly over the waves, which presented no problem.
Since that time, various types of hovercraft have appeared and taken up regular service.
The hovercraft is particularly useful in large areas with poor communications such as Africa or Australia;
it can become a 'flying fruit-bowl', carrying bananas from the plantations to the ports;
giant hovercraft liners could span the Atlantic;
and the railway of the future may well be the 'hovertrain',
riding on its air cushion over a single rail, which it never touches, at speeds, up to 300 m.p.h.--the possibilities appear unlimited.
译文
第29课
气垫船
气垫船在运动时是“骑”在什么上面的呢？
在我们这个世纪，许多新型的、奇特的交通工具被开发出来了。
其中最奇怪的，或许要数那艘气垫船了。
1953年，一位五十多岁的前电子工程师克里斯托弗·科克雷尔（Christopher Cockerell）……
谁开始在诺福克河口地区从事造船业呢？
他向英国政府和工业界提出了一项自己多年来一直在研究的想法。
这个想法的核心在于：利用一层低压空气作为“垫子”或“支撑层”来托住某个物体（比如飞行器），而该低压空气层则被一层高压空气所包围。
从那以后，人们就一直难以确定这种交通工具应该被归类为船舶、飞机中的哪一类。
或者陆地交通工具——因为它介于船和飞机之间。
作为一名造船工程师，科克雷尔一直在努力寻找解决船舶波浪阻力问题的方法。波浪阻力会浪费船舶大量动力，并限制其航行速度。
他的解决方案是让船漂浮在一片空气“垫层”上，这片空气垫层的厚度不超过一两英尺。
这是通过飞船底部大量环形喷气装置来实现的。
因此，它确实能够“飞行”，但它无法飞得更高；它的运动方式取决于它所依附的表面——无论是水面还是地面。
1959年，对“Solent”进行的初步测试引起了轰动。
气垫船先在水面上行驶，然后驶上了沙滩，接着爬上了沙丘，最后停在了道路上。
后来，它穿过了英吉利海峡，平稳地掠过海浪——整个过程没有任何问题。
从那时起，各种类型的气垫船相继问世，并开始被广泛使用（即投入日常运营）。
气垫船在通信条件较差的广大地区（如非洲或澳大利亚）特别有用。
它可以变成一个“会飞的果盘”，负责将香蕉从种植园运送到港口。
巨大的气垫船客轮或许能够横渡大西洋。
未来的铁路很可能会是“悬浮列车”。
这种装置依靠空气垫在单根轨道上行驶，且从未与轨道接触；其行驶速度可达到每小时300英里。由此看来，它的应用可能性似乎是无限的。