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Could a CD player, a laptop computer or a hand-held video game send an airline off course?
Unless you are born with feathers, flying requires faith. Passengers have to believe, once on board the plane, that a 227000kg machine moving extremely fast in the air is firmly in the pilot‘s control. That faith was shaken last week by a report that a DC-10 plane coming into New York‘s Kennedy airport recently almost crashed(撞毁) when a passenger in the first class turned on his portable compact disc player.
The story, first published in Time Magazine, set off people‘s concern. Can airplanes really be made to change their courses by something as small as a battery-powered CD player? Or a video-game machine? Or any of a dozen electronic gadgets(小器具) and computers that passengers regularly carry on board?
Although it may sound impossible, it can‘t be ruled out. Every electrical device creates a certain amount of radiation. Portable phones, remote-control toys and other radio transmitters send out signals that can carry for kilometers, and their use on planes has long been cassette players, tape recorders and laptop computers, which make far less electromagnetic(电磁的) noise.
Now there is increasing proof that even these gadgets may be putting aircraft at risk. A walkman-type radio tuned to an FM station produces oscillations(振荡) that can reach 1.5m to 3.5m-far enough, in some planes, to reach the navigation(导航) equipment in and around the cockpit (驾驶员座舱).
No planes have crashed and no lives have been lost-so far. But Time Magazine has got quite a few pilot reports linking a series of ―anomalies‖(异例) to a wide variety of electronic gadgets, from laptop computers to Nintendo Game Boys. In one striking example, a plane flying out of Chicago started going off course while its VOR dials became unclear and danced around. When the passenger in seat 9-D turned off his laptop, the report states, the ―panel lights immediately brightened and all navigation aids returned to normal.‖
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, pressed by pilots to punish the gadget holders on board, published an advisory late last week that Delta Airlines has already made longer its list of forbidden devices to include video playback machines and CD players.
With the arrival of new ―fly-by-wire‖ aircraft, which are heavily computerized and even more easily to be interfered with, passengers may have to go back to reading paperbacks and watching the in-flight movies.
1.The purpose of this article is to inform the readers of______.
A. the risks connected with flying modern computerized planes
B. the conditions connected with taking off and landing in modern planes
C. the risks connected with using electronic devices while flying in modern planes
D. the conditions connected with sitting within 3.5m off the cockpit in a modern plane
2.The following are four points made in the article, Which is the right order of what happened?
1) Many pilots have reported incidents of interference. 2) It is possible that electrical devices are dangerous. 3) Delta Airlines have forbidden CD players. 4) Passengers put their trust in pilots.
A.1,3,2,4 B.4,2,1,3 C.2,3,4,1 D.4,3,1,2
3.Which one of the following statements is true according to the information presented?
A. Remote-control toys are likely to produce radiation.
B. A DC-10 almost crashed while taking off from Chicago airport.
C. Walkman radios give off signals that can carry for several kilometers.
D. The greatest risk to DC-10 planes comes from electromagnetic interference.
4.According to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the best advice to offer someone who was about to travel on a plane would be______.
A. don‘t use any electronic devices while your plane is in the air
B. make sure that you are 3.5m from the cockpit before using electronic devices
C. tune into AM radio stations while using your walkman if the plane is in the air
D. check on whether the electronic devices you plan to take on board have been forbidden
