Simulado Agência Nacional de Transportes Aquaviários - ANTAQ | Analista Administrativo | 2019 pre-edital | Questão 193
Língua Inglesa / Itens gramaticais relevantes para a compreensão dos conteúdos semânticos
Blazing a trail with solar power In a hangar outside Zurich, engineers are paring
away at the obstacles to a very 21st century challenge: flying
a plane around the world powered by nothing but the rays of
the sun. If the Solar Impulse project goes to plan, in 2011 a
gangly aircraft with the wingspan of an Airbus A380 and the
weight of a compact car will attempt to circle the globe in
about a month at an average speed of 43 m.p.h. (70 km/h),
landing only five times along the way.
The challenge, says Piccard, is to keep going until
the next sunrise before the batteries are empty: “We have
very little margin of error from night into day. Each dawn
will be a moment of incredible suspense.” For the
flight, he and Boschberg will do alternating stints of five
days and five nights between landings. A day on the ground
spent charging in the sunlight should be enough to get the
plane back into the air the next morning for another stage in
its globe-girdling journey.
It’s a delicate enterprise, complicated by
meteorological challenges and the ungainliness of a plane
this big and light. Even Piccard doesn’t envision solar planes
replacing today’s airliners anytime soon, but that’s not the
point. To reduce emissions, he believes, aviation will
eventually need to wean itself from fossil fuels. “To make
reasonable use of any alternative,” he says, “we have to
become lighter and more aerodynamic to reduce
consumption.” Solar Impulse promises to generate an array
of futuristic insights — and some old-fashioned thrills along
the way.28 Internet: <www.time.com> (adapted).
In the text,.
the word “stints” (l.13) refers to an unbroken period of
time doing a certain job or activity.
