Class: X Subject: English Two Stories About Flying - The Black Airplane (Frederick Forsyth)

Date : April 21, 2020
Class : X
Subject : English
Two Stories about Flying – The Black Airplane
(Frederick Forsyth)
Introduction
The lesson “Black Aeroplane” by Frederick Forsyth reflects on how one’s
judgement gets distorted due to fantasizing and how it creates problems. In
this chapter, the narrator is a pilot who is so eager to meet his family and have
a good breakfast that he takes the wrong decision of facing the storm instead of
doing the right thing. Miraculously, he somehow manages to escape with the
help of a mysterious aeroplane.
Summary
The story “Black Aeroplane” is about a pilot who feels happy and contended to
fly over a city that is sleeping (at the night time). He is flying from Paris to
London. While taking his flight, he dreams about the long holiday with his
family. He also fantasizes about the scrumptious breakfast he would have
upon landing. As soon as he crosses Paris, he gets a look of the dark clouds
that were a sign of the upcoming storm. The right decision would have been to
turn back to Paris for the sake of safety. But he being overshadowed by his
dreams and not wanting to delay them, risks the life of his passengers and
heads straight into the storm. Everything gets dark, he is unable to see, all his
direction instruments stopped functioning and he lost control of the plane.
When all hope was lost, he saw another plane whose pilot was more than
willing to rescue them. The author was panicking as there was very less
amount of fuel left. The anonymous pilot guided them out of the storm and
disappeared as soon as they saw light. Upon landing, when he asks the lady in
the control room about the other pilot, he is left in shock when she says that
his was the only plane in the sky.
NCERT Questions and Answers

Q1. “I’ll take the risk.” What is the risk? Why does the narrator take it?
A. The “risk” here refers to not doing the right thing, which is flying back to
Paris when he came to know about the storm. Despite being aware of the bad
weather, the pilot headed straight into the storm and risked the lives of his
fellow passengers. The pilot’s decision making was clouded by his wish to meet
his family. He so desperately wanted to be with his family and have that
English breakfast he had been dreaming of all day, that he took the risk of not
going back.
Q2. Describe the narrator’s experience as he flew the aeroplane into the storm.
A. The narrator was frightened as he lost control of the plane. He felt helpless
as the compass and other instruments had stopped working. Nothing outside
the aeroplane was visible when suddenly in the midst of nowhere, an unknown
plane was visible and the pilot was eager to help him. The narrator was
panicking because there was very less fuel left but somehow, he managed to
escape the storm with the help of the strange pilot who he could not thank.
Q3. Why does the narrator say, “I landed and was not sorry to walk away from
the old Dakota…”?
A. The narrator had landed at an unknown place as his compass and radar
had stopped functioning in the storm. He was not scared to leave the plane
unattended and go to the control centre to inquire about the mysterious plane
which had helped him out of the storm.
Q4. What made the woman in the control centre look at the narrator strangely?
A. The woman in the control centre looked at the narrator strangely when he
asked about the other pilot that helped him escape the storm. This is because
there was no other plane in the sky during such bad weather.
Q5. Who do you think helped the narrator to reach safely? Discuss this among
yourselves and give reasons for your answer.
A. It was the pilot’s own conscience which helped him out of the storm. There
was no other plane out on that stormy night. So, probably, he was
hallucianting. It was his own capability as a pilot which led him out of that
black cloud.
Assignment for Self Assessment
Read the following extracts carefully and answer the questions that
follow.
Question 1. The moon was coming up in the east, behind me, and stars were shining
in the clear sky above me. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I was happy to be alone
high up above the sleeping countryside. I was flying my old Dakota aeroplane over
France back to England. I was dreaming of my holiday and looking forward to being
with my family. I looked at my watch at one thirty in the morning.
I should call Paris Control soon. I thought. As 1 looked down past the nose of the
aeroplane, I saw the lights of a big city in front of me.
(a) How was the weather when the pilot started flying his aeroplane?
(b) Why was the pilot flying his old Dakota aeroplane over France back to England?
(c) Find out the word similar in the meaning to ‘hoping with pleasure’.
(d) Choose from the passage the word which means ‘land outside towns or cities’.
Question 2.Paris was about 150 kilometres behind me when I saw the clouds. Storm
clouds. They were huge. They looked like black mountains ‘standing in front of me
across the sky-1 knew I could not fly up and over them, and I did not have enough
fuel to fly around them to the north or south. [CBSE 2016]
(a) What happened when the pilot was about 150 kilometres away from Paris?
(b) What does the author compare the clouds to?
(c) Find out the word similar in meaning as sufficient.
(d) The word ‘elephantine’ is similar in meaning to the word ………
Question 3. I landed and was not sorry to walk away from the old Dakota near the
control tower. I went and asked a woman in the control centre where I was and who
the other pilot was. ‘I wanted to say ‘Thank you’.
She looked at me very strangely, and then laughed.
‘Another aeroplane? Up there in this storm? No other aeroplanes were flying tonight.
‘Yours was the only one I could see on the radar.”
So who helped me to arrive there safely without a compass or a radio, and without any
more fuel in my tanks? Who was the pilot on the strange black aeroplane, flying in the
storm, without lights? [CBSE 2016]
(a) Why did the writer go to the Control center immediately?
(b) Why was the writer shocked after hearing the woman’s word?
(c) Find out the word in the passage that means the same as ‘peculiar’.
(d) Which part of speech does the word ‘tonight’ belong to?
Answer the following questions briefly:
1. Why did the writer follow the pilot of another aeroplane? [CBSE 2016]
2. Why did the woman in control room get shocked when the writer asked
about another aeroplane?
3. Why did the writer want to meet the pilot of another black aeroplane?
Answer in detail:
1. How did the writer get out of the storm in the night to land safely? [CBSE 2016]
2. The pilot wanted to thank another pilot after his safe landing. Why? What
values of the writer are reflected from his action?

Class: X Subject: English Two Stories About Flying - The Black Airplane (Frederick Forsyth)

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Date : April 21, 2020

Two Stories about Flying – The Black Airplane

NCERT Questions and Answers

Answer the following questions briefly:

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