The Wright Brothers

From the helicopter to the

airbus!

Foto F.Ramsauer

I found the following video and open cloze text about the WRIGHT BROTHERS on Larry Ferlazzo’s edublog.

Summary of  the brothers’ biography:

Orville was born in 1877 and died in 1948, whereas Wilbur lived from 1867 to 1912.It is generally said that these American brothers invented and built the first successful airplane. They also made the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight as you will hear in the video.

When they were children their father brought them home a toy “helicopter” . The device was based  on an invention of a French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Penaud.

It was made of paper, bamboo and cork with a rubber band to twirl its rotar.

After it had broken Wilbur and Orville built their own. They later pointed to that fact that their experience with the helicopter had been the initial spark of their interest in flying.

Despite the fact that Wilbur had an accident in winter 1885-86 knocking out his front teeth and as a consequence didn’t go to Yale and his brother Orville dropped out of high school they later opened a repair and sales shop for bicycles and from there

developed their growing interest in flight.

Now try to listen to the audio and do the exercise.

http://www.dy-tech.info/hotpot/wrightstuff/wrightstuff.htm