Up, Up, and Away|飞！飞！飞上天！

by Leigh Goldberg

The PAL-V is an expensive solution for getting out of traffic.

Anyone who drives knows what it's like to be stuck in a traffic jam with no way out. There's no _(1)_ forward or hitting reverse and shifting into another lane. It's at this point that most people wish they could take to the air and fly away. No longer would they have to suffer through gridlock, bottlenecks, or hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic. With the simple flick of a switch, their land vehicles would transform _(2)_ personal air transports.

Sounds impossible, right? Wrong! For those who can _(3)_ the US$330,000 sticker price, the Personal Air and Land Vehicle, or PAL-V for short, can do just that. _(4)_, it looks like a helicopter with three wheels instead of landing skids. Its main rotor blade provides lift, while the propeller in the back takes care of forward propulsion, both of which are tucked away upon landing to make it a street-legal vehicle. The PAL-V can reach speeds of _(5)_ 180 kilometers per hour on both land and in the air. Furthermore, drivers can cover 1,200 kilometers on the ground or fly comfortably at an _(6)_ of 1,200 meters for over 500 kilometers.

The PAL-V seems like the _(7)_ flying car, but there's a hitchrivers need valid pilots' licenses, and the vehicles can only be flown from airports since they require 165 meters of runway to take off and 30 meters to land. No matter what, the PAL-V will be turning heads when it becomes commercially available soon.

1.  (A) move    (B) moved   (C) moving  (D) moves

2.  (A) for (B) into    (C) with    (D) on

3.  (A) afford  (B) define  (C) import  (D) permit

4.  (A) Simply to put   (B) Simply putting  (C) To put simply   (D) Simply put

5.  (A) as to   (B) far from    (C) up to   (D) apart from

6.  (A) balance (B) altitude    (C) order   (D) temper

7.  (A) objective   (B) harmful (C) furious (D) ultimate

飞！飞！飞上天！

价格昂贵的个人陆空两用车是摆脱繁忙交通的解决之道。

每位驾驶人都明白陷在车阵中无路可走是什么滋味。车既无法往前开，驾驶也无法打倒车挡并换至其他车道。就在这个时候大多数人都希望他们能够升空然后飞走。他们将不用再忍受大塞车，狭窄路段或是好几个小时车子头尾相连的交通状况。只要简单地按个按钮，他们的陆上车辆就会转换成为个人的空中交通工具。

听起来很不可能，对吧？你错了！对那些负担得起定价 33 万美金的人来说，个人陆空两用车，或是简称为 PAL-V，就能够做到上述的事。简言之，它看起来像是有 3 个轮子而非起落架的直升机。它的主旋翼提供了上升的力量，而后方的螺旋桨则负责向前推进，而上述两者在降落时都会隐藏起来，使车子成为一台合法上路的交通工具。PAL-V在陆上和空中的时速都可高达 180 公里。另外，驾驶人在地面上可以行驶 1 千 2 百公里远，或是也可以舒舒服服地在 1千 2 百公尺的空中飞行超过 500 公里。

PAL-V似乎就像是终极的飞天车，但它也有一些障碍驾驶人必须要取得有效的飞行员执照，还有这种飞天车只能从机场起飞，因为它需要 165 公尺的跑道才能起飞和 30 公尺的跑道才能降落。不论如何，PAL-V 在不久之后正式上市时将会十分引人注目。

答案：  1.  C   2.  B   3.  A   4.  D   5.  C

   6.  B   7.  D

全球第一辆飞行车为 2006 年由美国 Terrafugia公司开始研发，2009 年 3 月首飞成功并交付使用的 Transition飞行汽车，此前宣布已经获得美国联邦航空局（FAA）和国家公路交通安全管理局（NHTSA）认证许可。

同是飞行汽车，虽然并非世界首创，但与 Transition 相比，PAL-V One具有体型较小，重量较轻的优点。其飞行原理也不像其他飞行汽车那样使用类似飞机两侧机翼飞行，而是像一架标准的旋翼机一样飞翔。低速起飞和降落，不会失速，极易操控，这也使 PAL-V One 成为安全性极高的飞机机型之一。

（数据源：大纪元时报）