音频下载: 2017年12月英语六级听力练习材料及音频（3）
More than 50 World War II-era planes flew information over the World War II Memorial inWashington Friday, marking the 70th anniversary ofthe end of the conflict in Europe.
The roar of mighty piston engines overheadtranfixed midday strollers and crowds along theNational Mall.
"It's just been an incredible day to come here, after all these years, and see these airplanesagain."
The flyby, called Arsenal of Democracy, was organized by the General Aviation ManufacturersAssociation.Its president and CEO, Peter Bunce, says restorating old airplanes is a slow andpainstakingly hard process done mostly by enthusiasts.
“Recently, there was a very iconic aircraft that was fished out in Lake Michigan and thataircraft will go through a very long restoration processes, it's years and years."
Many of the planes, such as this Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, called Texas Raiders belongs to aTexas-based non-profit organization called Commemorative Air Force.
Civilian corporate pilot Buddy Cooksey has been flying its vintage planes at air shows for morethan 40 years.He says the group has over 11,000 members but is always looking for new fansready to devote time and work to restoration and upkeep of old planes.
“We are looking for young ladies, young men, race, color, creed does not matter to us.They gotthe enthusiasm-we want them."
Cooksey says, despite their age, the planes are still in very good shape.
“Strangely enough the airplanes are quite durable, they were meant to be that durable.Andthere's lot of redundancy in the systems and so, the problem that we have is the parts arenot easily to come by."
Cooksey says every once in a while, a box of spare parts is discovered in some warehouse,but many of them have to be manufactured new, which is not cheap.But he says it is importantto keep these planes flying as a tribute to all who fought in them.
“I believe that they could be continually operated for probably…forever, as long as we cancontinue to do what we are doing."
（编辑：赵宁）
