Текст для чтения на адаптированном английском.
More than 80 years after aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky fled his native Russia and was erased from official Soviet history, he was finally acknowledged in Moscow as an outstanding designer of planes and helicopters.
110 years after his birth his achievements were shown at the Moscow Polytechnical Museum. The first time information about Sikorsky’s work was readily available to the average Russian. The exhibit included photographs, large scale models, a copy of his original Russian pilot’s license from 1911 and correspondence with his close friend, composer and- pianist Sergei Rakhmaninov.
“This is a chance for the Russian people to look at and review a piece of history that was forbidden to them until now.”
In 1912 Sikorsky was chief engineer for the imperial government’s aircraft factory in St. Petersburg. He flew on May 13, 1913 in “The Grand”, the world’s first four-engine airplane. At the time, he and his invention were famous throughout Russia and he was honored by Tsar Nicholas II. But when the Bolsheviks overthrew the government, the man known as “Mr. Aviation” fled the country.
After spending some time in France, he arrived in New York on March 30, 1919. He took a job teaching mathematics to other émigrés. Four years later, he started the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corp. at a New York farm. Later the company became subsidiary of what is today United Technologies Corp. The company first built flying boats, aircraft capable of water landing that were used in the early days of transatlantic flights.
In 1931 Sikorsky patented a design for the helicopter. His invention, with a single large main rotor and a small tail rotor, flew for the first time on September 14, 1939.
His helicopters were used in all five branches of the armed forces in the USA, and, of course, they were a key weapon for the Soviet Union as well. Today, Sikorsky helicopters are used by military services and commercial operators in more than 40 countries. Buried in a Russian cemetry in Stratford, Sikorsky always wanted to return to his homeland.
Vocabulary:
wings — крылья
flee (fled,fled) — покидать, бежать, спасаться бегством
to flee the country — бежать из страны
to erase — стирать
designer — зд. конструктор
to design — проектировать
design, n — зд. конструкция
to acknowledge — признавать
helicopter — вертолет
achievement — достижение
available — имеющийся
to be available — иметься в наличии
exhibit — выставка
to forbid — запрещать
forbiden — запрещенный
subsidiary — филиал
tail — хвост, хвостовой
to bury — хоронить
cemetry — кладбище
