本世纪已研制出许多新奇的……其中最新奇的要数……
Many strange new means of transport have been developed in our century, the strangest of them being perhaps the hovercraft.

1953年，有一位50多岁名叫……的原电子工程师，该行在……从事造船业，他向……提出了他研究多年的一项计划。
In 1953, a former electronics engineer in his fifties, Christophor Cockerell, who had turned to boat-building on the Norfolk Broads, suggested an idea on which he had been working for many years.

他的设想是：用低压空气垫或软垫来支撑船体，软垫周围用高压空气环绕。自那以后，人们很难决定是否将这种运载工具列为……，因为它是介于……之间的。
It was an idea of supporting the craft on pad or cushion, of low-pressure air, ringed with a curtain of high-pressure air. Ever since, people have had difficulty in deciding whether the craft should be ranged among ships, planes, or land vehicles- for it is something in between a boat and an aircraft.

作为一个船舶技师，他在寻找解决波浪阻力的办法，因为波浪阻力浪费了船在水面行驶的大量动力，从而限制其速度 。他的解决办法是把船体提离水面，让船在一个气垫上行驶，气垫只有一两英尺厚。
As a shipbuilder, he was trying to find a solution to the problem of wave resistance which wastes a great deal of a surface ship's power and limits its speed. His answer was to lift the vessel out of the water by making it ride on a cushion of air, no more than one or two feet thick.

船底装上大量……以实现这一目的。这样，船就能飞了，但飞不高，它的飞行取决于它所悬浮的水面或地面。
This is done by a great number of ring-shaped air jets on the bottom of the craft. It flies, therefore, but it cannot fly higher- its action depends on the surface, water or land, over which it rides.

1959年在苏伦特海峡进行的首次试航引起了轰动。
The first tests on the Solent in 1959 caused a sensation.

21'

从那以后，各种各样的气垫船出现了，并开始了定期航行服务。Since that time, various types of hovercraft have appeared and taken up regular services.

29'

This hovercraft is particularly useful in large areas with poor communications such as Africa or Australia 气垫船在……等幅员辽阔、交通不发达地区特别有用。

31'

the possibilities appear unlimited 前途不可限量

12'