19 Past Simple - regular and irregular past • Time expressions
• Past Continuous • Pronunciation - consonants
• have + noun = activity
What's in the news?
Past Simple
1
1 Positive
Complete the text with the Past Simple form of the verbs in the boxes.
Across the Channel in a chair
There are many ways to cross from England to
France - by boat, plane or Eurostar, for example.
But one man chose another form of transport.
travel set off become tie reach
Jonathan Trappe tied 54 balloons to a chair and
floated across the Channel. He
the first person
to cross the Channel with balloons filled with helium.
Mr Trappe
Не
top speed of 40 km/h.
from an airfield near Ashford at 5 a.m.
a height of 1,200 metres and
at
plan land control take have fly
The journey was 22 miles, and it
over four hours.
in a field in northern France.
his landing by cutting away some of the balloons.
the trip carefully. He needed permission
from aviation authorities, and he was equipped with sat-nav,
a radio, and oxygen.
Mr Trappe, 36, thinks it's a wonderful way to fly. 'A gas
balloon flies in complete silence, ' he says. 'I could hear the
waves from a height of 300 metres.
'As a child, I always
a dream of holding a bunch
of balloons and floating away into space. Didn't everybody?"
The first balloon crossing of the Channel was in 1785.
A Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, and an American
doctor, John Jefferies,
from Dover to Calais.
It took two and a half hours.
Jonathan Trappe floats across the Channel