World News for Students of English

07-01-2016 15:00

After flying some 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometres) across 23 countries, British adventurer Tracy Curtis Taylor touches down in Darwin, Australia after a twenty-day solo flight in a biplane from England.

Her trip was to pay tribute to Amy Johnson’s famous flight in 1930, when she became the first female pilot to fly solo from England to Australia.

“My flight is very much a tribute to her, so it is yet celebrating what the pioneers achieved and what women achieve now in aviation, as well.”

Curtis Taylor left England at the start of October in this, a Boeing 1942 Stearman, which has a simple stick and rudder for controls in an open cockpit, exposing a pilot to the elements.

“As you can see, it’s fairly devastating on the skin and the hair and so forth, so it’s tiring, it’s really tiring, it’s the noise, the vibration, the exposure…”

The plane will now be shipped to America and flown across the United States to complete a world flight later in 2016.

Difficult words: biplane (an early type of aircraft with two pairs of wings, one above the other), pay tribute (to show respect), pioneer (somebody who is among the first to do something), rudder (a flat piece of metal that helps to steer a plane or boat), expose (to be unprotected, especially from the weather), exposure (to expose – verb; exposure – noun).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com