Shadowing Practice: Flying a plane badly, on purpose. - Learn English Speaking with Video

My flight is going to go wrong on purpose, as my road trip brings me to Bedfordshire.

You might have noticed that the opening drone shot for this episode was a little middle of nowhere.

Couldn't get any closer to the filming location, because today's filming location is an airport, and also a university, and they're kind of the same thing.

Welcome to Cranfield University.

Cranfield was originally the College of Aeronautics.

It has about 5,000 students, mostly post-graduates, and the main campus is a former Royal Air Force Base, RAF Cranfield.

And I was visiting the National Flying Laboratory Centre, the Flying Classroom, which is not the big plane.

So are we technically going airside?

We are going to be going airside, that's right.

Hold on, wait.

There are two planes here.

Yes.

That's a big old plane.

That's the one we're actually going.

This is the one that we're going to be flying in today.

Yeah, the 737 is a static aircraft that's used as a ground laboratory here for a whole number of exercises,

some being evacuation drills, some being intelligent emergency lighting.

It's all sorts of stuff.

So they had a trial recently where they looked at, okay, if we can automate the emergency exit lights such that if that exit is not available,

we turn the lights off, does that actually encourage the people to go to the exits that are safer?

You can volunteer to help test evacuation procedures.

Although I suspect one of the problems with

that research is the sort of person who gets excited about

volunteering to help test evacuation procedures is not exactly representative of the general public.

Anyway, that's Rob that I'm talking to, he was the pilot that day.

We headed airside and went to the Flying Laboratory, a Saab 340B that used to be a regional airliner.

We're flying over 2,000 students a year in it at the moment, from all across the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

The students from the universities?

Yes, universities.

So at the moment, it's 22, 23 universities outside of Cranfield.

So if you're doing an aeronautical engineering degree, the chances are you'll fly with us.

Be you from Glasgow, Southampton, Swansea, all across the country, at some stage those students will fly with us.

And for them, it's probably their only practical flying experience.

There were still a couple of weeks until the academic year started, so that day's flight was a couple of things.

It was a start-of-season test for the plane, and it was also a chance to take some grad students,

professors, business partners, and visiting people with a camera on the sort of test flight that a student might get to experience.

Today we'd be doing five exercises to demonstrate what could be called non-standard maneuvers, or in other words, things pilots aren't usually meant to do.

So first, that plane's a classroom.

Second...

The other thing we do is research work, and we do a whole load of different research stuff.

One of them is the virtual flight data recorder, for example.

We did some engine propeller research last year.

We did some emissions research work earlier this year.

So, classroom research, and then the third bit that we're really good at, I think, is STEM outreach work.

We can get kids on an aeroplane, you know, quite often children who have never been close to an aeroplane.

It's so hard to get...

No one can get on a flight deck anymore.

No. But here we've got a 737, we've got the real airplane that flies.

You know, for those youngsters who aren't sure what they want to be, but they quite like the STEM stuff, we can really inspire them about getting into aviation.

We did a walk around the plane, which had a couple of modifications.

Can you see the vortex generators underneath?

Oh, all those little things there.

The spiky things.

Yeah, the spiky things.

So you'll see those.

There's a spiky thing at the front.

We've got more sections under here.

They were all produced after the aircraft first flew, generally.

What happens is, back in that day, they'd design the aeroplane, think it's okay, hand it over to the test pilots.

The test pilots would fly it and go, hmm, it's not quite right.

No computer simulation.

No computer simulation in those days.

So they'd go back and they'd fit some vortex generators, hand it back to the test pilots and say, what do you think now?

And they'd go, now it's all right.

So if you look around on the aeroplane, there's all sorts of quirks and things that just identify the era in which it was flown.

We went inside and, well, it was a plane.

They gave me a model of it.

The in-flight entertainment was a bit unusual, though.

I'm holding onto a tablet here, which is held by the demonstrator who sits in the cabin attendant seat.

And the demonstrator will control the flight.

He will control what the students see.

So depending on what we want to do, we'll have different displays.

If you've ever been on a long haul flight with that moving map display, this was that, but with so much more detail.

There are seat bags located in every seat pocket.

We try not to use them, but we often do use them.

I have been told that there are going to be some maneuvers later

and I'm going to be given a job here to the same job that I guess first year students would have.

They are, well actually the students we fly are typically second or third year undergraduate students from other universities.

So they've had a bit of time at university, they understand much more about aerospace and aerodynamics than they did when they started, so that when they fly with us,

They've got the theory in their heads, but it's all about what does the real world look and feel like.

And that's where this airplane's really important.

They've done the lectures, they've done the seminars, but we get them in the aeroportons, and say, okay, you've seen it on PowerPoint, this is how it looks and feels and smells in real life.

So enjoy it, and they do enjoy it.

I mean, even those that maybe don't feel very well, they still have a smile on their face.

And they learn things and they feel things that it would never do in a simulator.

There was a full and detailed briefing about the flight and about safety.

The pilots checked over the flight plan, and then we all passed through a working replica of a check-in system and boarding gate, because that is also something that scientists might want to research.

Our demonstrator was Simon, and he took us out to the plane, gave us a quick rundown about what it could do, and soon enough the engines were starting up,

the propellers were spinning, and we were taking to the sky.

The plane's going to look a little empty from some camera angles, First, because I was trying not to get people's faces in shock too much, and second, because only the window seats were occupied.

We reached the block of airspace we'd been assigned, and it was time for exercise one, G-force.

This was a bit of a warm-up.

The pilots were going to bank the plane more and more and more, and the students' job was simply to write down the elevator angle, the force that the pilot was using to pull the stick,

and the G-force we were undergoing.

Which sounds easy, apart from the fact that we were under G-force.

We're just about to start, so if you get your book ready, the screen will only pause for 15 seconds, if you remember for this one.

This was, obviously, quite simple when we're going straight ahead at 1G.

Then we started to bank.

That's our next data point, 30 degrees angle of bank.

100

30 degrees doesn't sound like much, but the turn then kept getting tighter and tighter, and by the end of the first exercise,

101

we were turning at a 60-degree bank angle and pulling a sustained 2G.

102

You can see my camera's stabilisation, struggling to cope with everything that was going on.

103

And frankly, so was I.

104

Frozen, thank you, end of test.

105

Okay, well done, everybody, you made it.

106

Well done.

107

Full marks to Rob the pilot there.

108

That was 2.00G.

109

He managed to hit his target to two decimal places.

110

Unbelievable.

111

I, on the other hand, had got confused at some point and scrambled my data because I'd made a critical error, and it was something I should have known.

112

There are two rules of how not to get motion sick when you're under G-force.

113

The first, do not look at a screen during G-Force.

114

And I was looking at two and my papers.

115

And the second is, don't turn your head during G-Force.

116

And I knew that, and I still did it.

117

Because I wanted to look out the window and see the screen and see my papers, and if you're ever in a situation like this, keep your head still and move your eyes.

118

because turning your head under G-force messes up all the balance stuff in your inner ear, and suddenly you will feel sick.

119

And as a result, I'm pretty sure I would have failed that test as a student.

120

My copybook was a mess.

121

Still, four more exercises to go.

122

The next one was to demonstrate the stick pusher.

123

So for this one, I would like you to check all loose articles are safely away, that you're tightly strapped in,

124

emphasize tightly, and give me a thumbs up or a wave to tell me that you are all strapped in.

125

Thank you very much, lots of thumbs up, thank you.

126

I would have loved to have been loosely strapped in, because we were going to be pulling a very brief negative G-manoeuvre, where your seat drops away from under you.

127

But I was on camera, and I was behaving.

128

There's still quite a reaction, though.

129

It did take us a few minutes to get into position for this one, so while that happens...

130

Keeping your computer and internet connections safe is something that I am meant to know about.

131

So when NordVPN asked me to talk about their next-gen antivirus, I was sceptical.

132

I spent a long time talking to one of their product and engineering managers, talking about security and privacy, and he's convinced me that they know what they're doing.

133

By next-gen antivirus, they mean it acts before malicious stuff gets downloaded to your system.

134

So they'll block phishing sites and fake shops and scam sites.

135

If they find lists of leaked or stolen credentials that match yours, they'll warn you.

136

And they'll do it while still maintaining your privacy.

137

They've got independent test results to back up that it works above the protection that's built into your computer or your phone.

138

And of course, the regular VPN is still there too.

139

I'm still using it regularly, and I have done now for years, to get around region blocks on content.

140

If I'm in Europe, like I am now, there are American sites that block the entire continent, or which just send me to the local version without an option to switch back.

141

NordVPN runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, covering up to ten devices at the same time, and has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

142

Go to nordvpn.com slash Tom Scott, scan the QR code on screen, So click the link in the description to get the best deal they're currently offering.

143

Right, we had reached the assigned bit of airspace for the stick pusher test.

144

The propellers went to maximum RPM, and the pilots pushed the plane towards a stall.

145

So if a plane pulls up too fast or travels too slowly, the airflow over the wings can become turbulent, and the lift goes away.

146

It's recoverable, but, you know, bad.

147

Best way I can describe it is, imagine the plane is in normal flight.

148

This angle, absolutely fine.

149

This angle?

150

Bad.

151

Not gonna work.

152

Now if the plane was a fighter jet or something going straight up, that angle's absolutely fine, but, you know, this one would be bad.

153

A stall happens at the transition point, when there's too much difference between the direction the aircraft's going and the direction in which the wings work.

154

So we went into a climb, further and further and further, and our airspeed reduced and reduced and reduced, and we were all waiting for the emergency override to kick in,

155

the stick pusher, which would suddenly push the pilot's control column forward to prevent a stall.

156

If that ever activates in normal flight, that's obviously bad.

157

But today, keep your eyes on the pilot's control column, because just for a moment, Rob won't be the one controlling it.

158

Get ready for the push, get ready, get ready.

159

Here we go, 101.

160

Excellent.

161

Solid.

162

101 knots I got.

163

101 knots was the airspeed at which the push happened.

164

I did manage to write that down.

165

Everybody okay?

166

Nobody fell out?

167

Everybody's still there?

168

Yep, good.

169

We got all sorts of diagrams and charts about what happened, but Rob was right, there is no substitute to having your chair drop out from under you

170

and your seatbelt pull you down.

171

Never experienced something close to a stall in an aircraft before, and that was quite a strong drop.

172

Like, you would have seen my face there.

173

I'm used to those now.

174

I like roller coasters these days.

175

That, if that was unexpected on a commercial flight, that would have caused some screaming.

176

Item three was the fugoid pattern, which somehow I'd never heard of before this flight.

177

Okay, the pilot's going to raise the nose now, which you can feel.

178

Now, when we get to about 20 degrees nose up, the pilot will release the controls.

179

You feel a bit of negative G initially.

180

Here we go.

181

Stickers released.

182

This was joyful, a gentle, almost zero-g moment of floating.

183

But I think most people would assume that if the pilot releases the controls, the plane is going to rapidly lose all direction and plunge towards the ground.

184

But in normal conditions, assuming all the settings are dialled in, that's not what happens.

185

Now, the aircraft wants to get back to its trim speed of 180 knots.

186

You can see we're pitching down now, and speed is building up.

187

We're losing altitude.

188

I noticed that we passed through the speed that we're trying to get to.

189

There's the aircraft overshoots, building up more lift, and we'll start to glitch up again.

190

This was lovely, like a gentle up-and-down roller coaster.

191

The plane is designed to be stable, because of course it is.

192

It damps down its own motion, gently overshooting and undershooting its target speed.

193

And the pilots were calm and just letting the plane do its thing.

194

The pilot can easily actually control this, and they'll probably recover as we go through the horizon now.

195

It would probably take some manual intervention to get that oscillation back down to zero, and it is possible to get an unstable fugoid pattern, or for a pilot to panic and make it worse.

196

have caused air disasters, but like this, it was really nice.

197

Exercise four was a much faster fugoid pattern.

198

Very simply, the pilot was going to pull, and then later push the control column, one short motion.

199

And just as before, the plane is designed to stay stable, and every setting chosen would help with that.

200

It was a bit more dramatic, though.

201

Make sure your seatbelt's tightly strapped, nothing to fly around.

202

But again, keep your eye on what the pilot is doing.

203

Okay, so the pilot is ready.

204

I'm going to count them in this time.

205

Okay, so get ready.

206

Three, two, one, go.

207

If you don't know about planes, you might assume that a pilot pushing and pulling the control column like that could cause a disaster.

208

And yes, it's briefly startling, but then the design of the plane corrects for it.

209

This angle of attack causes a changing pitch moment to oppose the input only slightly overshoots.

210

It's a very highly damp system.

211

As I said, that's what we want the aircraft to do, so the pilot doesn't have to make any corrections for this one at all.

212

That would have caused some screaming on a commercial flight, that would.

213

It's a lot of fun in this context, but I guess the...

214

So if you could help me out here, if you could lower the window screens please,

215

and we'll try and get rid of all our external reference points for this one.

216

Our last demonstration is a classic.

217

I knew the trick, I understood how it worked, and I was still very bad at it.

218

So what the pilot's going to do is start with the aircraft straight and level, then we'll do a series of manoeuvres, and at the end of that the pilot will say,

219

on condition, and you and I have to work out what is the aircraft doing.

220

With no external reference points, that was difficult.

221

You get to see two things here, what the aircraft's doing, and my face as I try and work it out.

222

Here we go.

223

Okay, I feel lighter, which means we have descended, we're starting to descend.

224

Okay, that's a strong turn to the right, that's a very strong bank to the right, I'm pulling G-force, we're definitely banking to the right hard.

225

So it honestly feels like we're continuing to bank stronger to the right.

226

And that's now eased off.

227

Now that feels like we're going straight.

228

Now it's strung back to the right again.

229

Did you spot that?

230

Twice, Rob the pilot pulled a strong, sudden manoeuvre up and to the right, relative to what we were doing.

231

But my brain had entirely missed the much longer, slow, steady turn down and left.

232

I'm going to say we are going up and to the right.

233

I knew they were trying to fool us, but I didn't know how or in what direction, and every part of me, balance system, brain, every part agreed.

234

Your internal organs in your head are very poor at identifying slow rates of change

235

and very easy to get disorientated when you don't have external references.

236

It's the same trick that motion rides and simulator rides use, and it's the reason that instrument flying at night and in bad weather is a very different skill to flying by eye.

237

That's not the main lesson I took from a flight in Cranfield University's laboratory, though the thing I learned for the second time in my life was something I should already have known,

238

and as we came into land, I shared it with the camera.

239

If there's one lesson that I would like to impart to everyone watching this video, don't turn your head during G-Force.

240

Next time, or right now, on Nebula, a train that doesn't violate trademarks, and I hold on for dear life in a screaming void.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 240 sentences and 3239 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:27. The speaker talks fast, about 186 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
angle noun	/ˈæŋ.ɡəl/	A figure formed by two rays which start from a common point (a plane angle) or by three planes that intersect (a solid angle).
column noun	/ˈkɒləm/	A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration.
laboratory noun	/ˈlæb(ə)ɹəˌtɔɹi/	A room, building or institution equipped for scientific research, experimentation or analysis.
stall noun	/stɔːl/	A compartment for a single animal in a stable or cattle shed.
strap noun	/stɹæp/	A long, narrow, pliable strip of leather, cloth, or the like.
exit noun	/ˈɛɡzət/	An act of going out or going away, or leaving; a departure.
classroom noun	/ˈklɑːsɹʊm/	A room, often in a school, where classes take place.
scream verb	/skɹiːm/	To cry out with a shrill voice; to utter a sudden, sharp outcry, or shrill, loud cry, as in fright or extreme pain; to screech, to shriek.
tightly adverb	/ˈtaɪtli/	In a tight manner.
evacuation noun	/ɪˌvækjuˈeɪʃən/	The act of evacuating; leaving a place in an orderly fashion, especially for safety.
knot noun	/nɑt/	A looping of a piece of string or of any other long, flexible material that cannot be untangled without passing one or both ends of the material through its…
stable noun	/ˈsteɪ.bəl/	A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses.
trick noun	/ˈtɹɪk/	Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle.
lesson noun	/ˈlɛs.ən/	A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided.
procedure noun	/pɹəˈsiː.d͡ʒə/	A particular method for performing a task.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
build up verb	To erect; to construct.
pass through verb	To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another.
back up verb	To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so.
check over verb	To read or inspect, looking for errors or problems.
fall out verb	To come out of something by falling.
get around verb	To move to the other side of (something, such as an obstruction) by deviating from a direct course or following a curved path.
get back to verb	Return to (an activity)
go away verb	To depart or leave a place.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If there's one lesson that I would like
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	could be called · was flown · is held
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have never been · you've ever been · have been told
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	Classroom, which is · person who gets · children who have

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 72 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thumb /ˈθʌm/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: evacuation /ɪˌvækjuˈeɪʃən/, simulation /ˌsɪm.jəˈleɪ.ʃn̩/, shock /ʃɔk/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/
Long words — get the stress right: laboratory /ˈlæb(ə)ɹəˌtɔɹi/, evacuation /ɪˌvækjuˈeɪʃən/, generator /ˈdʒɛnəɹeɪtə(ɹ)/, simulator /ˈsɪmjəˌleɪtɚ/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like angle, column, laboratory.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Flying a plane badly, on purpose. - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?