2 . What problem do the speakers have?

3 . Where does the conversation probably take place?

8 . People traveling long distances frequently have to decide whether they would prefer to go by land, sea, or air. Hardly can anyone positively enjoy sitting in a train for mort than a few hours. Train compartments soon get cramped and stuffy. Reading is only a partial solution for the monotonous rhythm of the wheels clicking on the rails soon lulls you to sleep. During the day, sleep comes in snatches. At night when you really wish to go to sleep you rarely manage to do so. Inevitably you arrive at your destination almost exhausted.

Long car journey are even less pleasant for it is quite impossible even to read. On motorways you can at least, travel fairly safely at high speeds, but more often than not, the greater pan of the journey is spent on narrow bumpy roads which are crowded wich traffic.

By comparison, trips by sea offer a great variety of civilized comforts. You can stretch your legs on the spacious decks, play games, swim, meet interesting people and enjoy good food-always assuming, of course, that the sea is calm. If it is not and you are likely to get seasick; no form of transport could be worse. Even if you travel in ideal weather, sea journeys take a long time. Relatively few people are prepared to sacrifice up to a third of their holidays for the pleasure of traveling on a ship.

Airplanes have the reputation of being dangerous and expensive. But nothing can match them for speed and comfort. Traveling at a height of 30,000 feet far above the clouds, and at over 500 miles an hour is an exhilarating experience. For a few hours, you settle back in a deep armchair to enjoy the flight. The real escapist can watch a free film show and sip champagne on some services. But even when such refinements are not available, there is plenty to keep you occupied. An airplane offers you an unusual and breathtaking view of the world. You soar effortlessly over high mountains and deep valleys. You really see the shape of the land. If the landscape is hidden from the view. you can enjoy the extraordinary sight of unbroken cloud plains that stretch om for miles before you, while the sun shines brilliantly in a clear sky. The journey is so smooth that there is nothing to prevent you from reading or sleeping. However you decide to spend your time, one thing is certain: you will arrive at your destination fresh and uncrumpled.

9 . If you had boarded a passenger plane in 1950, you would have seen five people in the cockpit (驾驶舱): two pilots, a radio operator, a navigator and a flight engineer. Over the years, technical advances have gradually removed the need for the last three, leaving just two pilots. That has been the norm (标准) in commercial aviation for decades.

However, things could be simplified further — one of the two remaining pilots could soon go. Many military aircraft are already manned by a single pilot, and for commercial aviation this would mean stepping into a brave new world.

But how will airlines make this brave innovation come true? One way is to greatly increase automation in the cockpit, devoting more tasks to computers. Another is to shift the same tasks from the cockpit to the ground. “The latter approach seems to be more workable, at least in the short term, because much of what is required already exists,” says Patrick Smith, an airline pilot flying Boeing 767 aircraft. “A trained ground operator could observe a number of flights at once and even fully control the plane remotely if needed.”

It’s true that single-pilot operations could help airlines save money, but there is another reason which makes them quicken their pace for this crucial breakthrough. Boeing predicts a need for 600,000 new pilots in the next two decades, but by some estimates, there will be a deficit (赤字) of at least 34,000 pilots globally by 2025. Reducing the number of pilots on some crews or aircraft could lessen the impact of this.

Perhaps the biggest barrier to a single pilot will be selling the idea to passengers. In 2019, Don Hairis, a professor at Coventry University, conducted a survey on the prospect of flying on an airliner with just one pilot. Just a minority of participants said they’d be willing to take that flight, and the general idea was that removing a pilot increased the possibility of accidents. In the study, Harris concluded that the single-crew airliner would be still probably 20 years away.