Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 3, Two Stories about Flying, pairs Liam O’Flaherty’s His First Flight (a young seagull overcoming his terror of flying) with Frederick Forsyth’s The Black Aeroplane (a pilot guided safely through storm clouds by a mysterious black aircraft). The chapter PDF also includes Carolyn Wells’s humorous poem How to Tell Wild Animals and John Berryman’s The Ball Poem.
What Class 10 English (First Flight) Chapter 3 Covers
Part I: His First Flight (Liam O’Flaherty) & Part II: The Black Aeroplane (Frederick Forsyth) In His First Flight, a young seagull is left alone on his ledge for 24 hours because he is afraid his wings will not support him; driven ‘maddened by hunger’, he dives at a piece of fish in his mother’s beak, falls outwards into space, feels his wings spread and learns to soar and float on the green sea. In The Black Aeroplane, a pilot flying his old Dakota DS 088 from Paris to England enters huge black storm clouds with a dead compass and radio, follows a mysterious wingtip-waving pilot in a black aeroplane with no lights to a safe runway, only to learn at the control centre that no other plane was flying that night on the radar.
Poems: How to Tell Wild Animals (Carolyn Wells) & The Ball Poem (John Berryman) How to Tell Wild Animals uses dark humour and poetic licence (*lept*, *lep*) to identify the Asian Lion, Bengal Tiger, Leopard, Bear (‘bear hug’), Crocodile vs Hyena, and Chameleon. The Ball Poem watches a young boy lose his ball in the harbour water and learn the ‘epistemology of loss’—how to stand up and accept the loss of cherished possessions and people in a world of possessions.
Exercises in Chapter 3
- Thinking about the Text asks why the young seagull was afraid to fly, how his mother tricked him into diving off the ledge (‘The sight of the food maddened him’), why the Dakota pilot took the risk of flying straight into the storm clouds (he wanted to get home and have a big English breakfast with his family), and who helped him arrive safely.
Read Class 10 English (First Flight) Chapter 3 Online
More Chapters
- Previous: Chapter 2: Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (with Poem: A Tiger in the Zoo)
- Next: Chapter 4: From the Diary of Anne Frank (with Poem: Amanda!)
- Workbook companion: Words and Expressions II Unit 3: Two Stories about Flying
- All English (First Flight) chapters and the other Class 10 books: Class 10 NCERT books 2026-27
- All Class 1 to 12 NCERT Textbooks: NCERT Books PDF (Class 1–12)
- Every book chapter by chapter: NCERT chapter wise PDF
FAQ
How did the young seagull’s mother finally compel him to make his first flight?
Knowing the young seagull was starving after twenty-four hours without food, his mother tore at a piece of fish, flew across to him with it in her beak, and halted just within reach of the ledge without landing. Maddened by the sight of the food, the young seagull dived at the fish, fell outwards and downwards into space, and his natural instinct made him spread his wings and fly.
What is the central theme (‘epistemology of loss’) of John Berryman’s ‘The Ball Poem’?
Through the boy’s grief over losing his ball in the harbour, the poet teaches that loss is an inevitable part of growing up. Money is external and cannot replace memories or loved ones, so every person must learn the ‘epistemology of loss’—how to bear loss with resilience and move forward in life.