The first people ---- non-stop round the world ---- captain James Gallagher and his crew.

A) to have flown / have been
B) being flown / are
C) to fly / were
D) to be flying / had been
E) having been flown / will be

C is correct. What about these? Are they correct?

1. The first people to fly non-stop round the world have been captain James Gallagher and his crew.

2. The first people to have flown non-stop round the world had been / were captain James Gallagher and his crew.

3. The first people flown non-stop round the world were / had been captain James Gallagher and his crew.

4. The first people having flown non-stop round the world were / had been captain James Gallagher and his crew.

supposing James Gallagner is not a historical figure.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: curious,

Those are all interesting options, but they don't work. You can only base this kind of sentence on reality, and the reality is (1) those were the first people, and (2) they flew non-stop around the world.

We have a fixed pattern to handle the simple past idea in both parts of the sentence, and that's why C works efficiently and accurately.

Of course, the one option that will work is to use a relative clause and say The first people who flew non-stop round the world were Captain James Gallagher and his crew.

(By the way, notice that I capitalized Captain. It was his title, so it should be capitalized.)

My philosophy is that one shouldn't try to complicate elements of a language if it's unwarranted. Simplicity is the key to good communication.

By the way, most of the options you've tried to come up with don't work because their time frames don't work.

Richard

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Richard, Moderator,