Shadowing Practice: Flying the Air Force's $320M Supersonic B-1 Bomber - Learn English Speaking with Video
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This is the B-1 Lancer, an aircraft that has the speed of a fighter jet, the payload of a bomber, and the looks of a transformer.
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It can fly at supersonic speeds upwards of Mach 1.2, has four rocket ship-like engines with fire-emitting afterburner,
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and is so maneuverable that even when weighing a staggering 400,000 pounds, it can roll upside down and fly inverted.
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And despite its nearly 150 feet in length, the B-1 was designed to carry only two things, fuel and bombs.
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Well today I'm out here at Dias Air Force Base with
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the 7th Bomb Wing to take you up close to this incredible aircraft.
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And by the end of this video, I can promise you one thing.
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You'll know why the B-1 Lancer is considered by many to be one of the most powerful aircraft to ever fly.
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I'm 1st Lieutenant Davis Perkins, the pilot on the B-1B Lancer, aircraft also known as the Bone.
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This aircraft carries the largest conventional payload of any U.S strike asset at 75,000 pounds, which allows us to do global strike missions putting air power anytime, anywhere.
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Because of our capabilities and airspeed, we're able to integrate with the rest of the U.S.
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Air Force inventory, fighters, and other fast-movers' assets.
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Now, you may notice that the aircraft is often referred to as the B-1B Lancer, and that's because there were actually two versions built.
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The original, the B-1A, was developed in the 1970s as a replacement for the B-52 Stratofortress.
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Four prototypes of this long-range, high-speed bomber were developed and tested in the mid-1970s,
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The program ended up being canceled in 1977 before ever going into production.
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Well, flash forward to the early 1980s when a new administration took over, the B-1 program was revitalized, this time under the designation B-1B.
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Improvements to the original A model included an increased payload, improved radar, and a reduction of the radar cross-section, a fancy way of saying how easily the aircraft appears on enemy radar.
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The first B-1B was delivered right here to Dias Air Force Base, Texas in June of 1985, And just three years later,
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in 1988, a total of 100 aircraft had been successfully delivered to the United States Air Force.
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So when you look at the other two bomber aircraft in the Air Force, right, the B-2 Spirit, the B-52 Stratofortress, what would you say really sets the B-1 apart?
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So things that set the B-1 apart are its speed, maneuverability, and payload.
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It's a 1.2 Mach-capable aircraft, and with the wings pinned, we can pull three Gs, and and it carries up to 75,000 pounds of conventional weapons,
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which is more than the other Air Force strike assets.
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Now, one of the most iconic features of the B-1 can be found right here with the wings.
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The B-1 was built with what are known as variable swept wings, meaning the wings can actually move and reposition during flight.
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This is a feature you may recognize from fighter aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat.
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For most airplanes, wing designs are trade-offs.
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You either design the wing for low speed stability, high speed performance, or something sort of in the middle.
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And for many aircraft with a singular mission, that works just fine.
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But for something like the B-1, with a mission that requires it to go both fast and slow, be able to maneuver and have high stability,
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flexibility in the wing configuration allows massive advantages to the different missions the aircraft is able to perform.
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During takeoff, landings, and other slow speed flight, the B-1's wings are extended out to increase lift and drag in what's known as full forward,
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with the wings almost perpendicular to the body of the aircraft.
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And when the aircraft speeds up, especially during supersonic flight, the wings pivot to the rear in what's known as full sweep, giving the B-1 an almost delta wing-like appearance for full maneuverability.
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So the variable wings on the B-1 can sweep anywhere from 15 degrees, which is full forward, or all the way to 6 to 7 and a half, which is wings full aft,
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or as we like to call them, wings pin.
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At 15 degrees, which is full forward the way you see the configuration now, this is where we put the wings for takeoff and landing
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or slow flight basically whenever we want to use the least amount of fuel to stay airborne
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or we want to fly the slowest airspeed possible.
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Crews will actually bump back 10 degrees to 25 degrees wing
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which is our most efficient for our max range configuration
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and then for actual weapons employment we'll sweep back to between 45 and 67 depending on the style of mission we're doing.
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With the wings full aft at 67
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and a half degrees we can actually are quite maneuverable
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and the jet flies like a fighter at low altitude so it's pretty fun to fly.
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Now I think everyone's favorite feature on the bone are these engines right here.
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You've probably all seen the shots of the V1 taking off, full burner, engines rattling, fire coming out the back.
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It's just crazy to me that they put like fighter jet like engines on the back of a bomber.
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So from a pilot's perspective what's it like to fly with these things?
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What can you tell us about that that performance?
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It's incredible.
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It's a ton of fun.
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When you're in the airspace and you plug all four into max, which is full burner, you can just feel the kick in your pants
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and you can just watch your airspeed just scroll up as you just speed up.
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Each engine makes about 15,009 pounds of thrust at mill power, which is our highest power setting out of afterburner.
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Once you go into burner and push it all the way up to max, each engine is making about 30,000.
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So it's about 120,000 pounds of thrust in full afterburner.
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Now another cool feature is actually right behind the engines, and I've always found this fascinating, right?
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The rolling stabilizers.
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Can you talk a little bit about their design and what they allow the V1 to do?
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Sure, so the rolling stab or split stab actually allows each side of the horizontal stab to move independently.
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So if you can imagine, if you're looking at the jet from the back, you'll have one doing this while the other does this.
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And what that does for us is it plays into
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that maneuverability factor I talked about earlier
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that sets us apart from other strike assets and that it gives us a lot more roll authority.
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So our spoilers that we have in the wings, since we don't have ailerons, we use spoilers to oil to lift and that'll drop the wing on either side.
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At high speeds those spoilers aren't as efficient or
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and they don't provide as much roll authority just
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because they get blown back so the stab kind of takes over at
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that point and we're going really fast full burner with the wings pinned that's
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when we need that extra roll authority that the split stab gives us.
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Now the typical crew for a B1 mission includes four total personnel your standard pilot
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and co-pilot but also two wizos which stands for weapons systems officer.
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Their role, just like their name indicates, is to operate the weapons systems on the B-1, in addition to integrating with the pilots to help ensure that they have good situational awareness at all times.
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Hey, I'm Lane Musgrave and I'm a weapons systems officer on the B-1 Lancer.
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So we're dual qualified as an offensive systems operator or a defensive systems operator.
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On the offensive side, we're responsible for weapons employment, sensor operation, navigation, and communication.
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And then on the defensive side, we're responsible for managing our defensive of avionics system, deploy expendables, and managing all of our receive and transmit capabilities.
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Alright, so for a weapons systems officer, the main things we're focused on are our sensors and our weapons.
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So as you can see, we've got our radar on the front, so APQ-164.
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We've also got our advanced sniper targeting quad, and then we have three weapons bays that can be configured to carry different types of weapons depending on our mission set.
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Oh wow, it's a lot bigger than you'd expect.
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Yeah, so this is the main attraction for the bomber.
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So we've got three bays, a forward, intermediate, and an aft bay.
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Currently our forward bay is configured with the Storrs Bay tank.
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It adds an additional 20,000 pounds of fuel for our ocean crossings or long duration sorties.
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In the intermediate bay, we currently are configured for a 10 carry, an SPM 10 launcher.
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So this can carry 500,000 pound munitions, including our laser guided J-DAMs.
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And in the AF-Bay, we've currently got a conventional rotary launcher, or CRL, which carries 2,000-pound class weapons,
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including JDAMs, our GV-31s, as well as JASM and L-RASM.
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Now one thing to note is that unlike the B-52 Stratofortress and the B-2 Spirit, the B-1 Lancer does not carry nuclear weapons.
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However, that wasn't always the case.
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The B-1 was originally designed as a nuclear bomber, and was used to sit nuclear alert missions throughout its early Cold War years.
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However, in 1994, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States
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and Russia limited the number of nuclear-capable bombers each country could have.
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And to comply, that meant the US had to withdraw the B-1 from its nuclear mission.
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Now, a question I know I was wondering was whether
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or not the B-1 could still technically carry nuclear weapons if it wanted to.
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And what I found out is that the answer is actually no. Once the START Treaty was signed,
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the aircraft was physically modified to remove the special wiring and external hardpoints that made carrying nuclear weapons possible.
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So even though this aircraft is nearly 150 feet long and has a wingspan of 137 feet, the only way in or out is through this ladder right here on the belly of the aircraft.
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Like I said earlier, they designed the B-1 to carry two things, fuel and bombs, and in order to fit as much of those two as possible, that meant cutting out pretty much everything else.
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So, with that, I say we head up this ladder and go take a look inside the cockpit of the B-1.
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As I made my way inside the bone for the first time, first impressions were that yeah, it's definitely tight.
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Just enough space to get the mission done, while leaving as much room as possible for the business end.
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Up front you have your standard side-by-side seats for both the pilot and co-pilot, and in the back, separated by this small hatchway-like opening, are your seats for the two weapons systems officers.
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Because of the large panels of screens, dials, and buttons, the two wizos can't actually see the pilots sitting in front of them,
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and their only physical point of reference is this small window on the left and right side of each seat, meaning they're forced to rely almost entirely on their instrument panel to know their location.
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Now in case you're wondering, there is a restroom, a latrine as they call it, that's installed for long missions, but it's small
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and the only space you can really stand up to stretch
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your legs is this small aisle right above the entrance hatch that's between the two wizos seats.
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Alright so this is the bomb nav panel, this is where we release weapons.
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So when we're flying and we're about to release a weapon, we have a launch acceptability region
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or a LAR where the jet has done computations to say
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that in order to hit a certain target we can release in this area and hit the target.
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So we'll go auto 20 to 30 seconds prior to release
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and after opening the doors and press auto
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and then the jet will release the J-DEM automatically to to hit the target we want to hit.
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Alright Sam, welcome inside the cockpit of the B-1.
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As you can see it's nice and spacious in here.
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From where I'm sitting up here, these are the pilot seats, so left seat, right seat, and our job up here is to manage the systems of the aircraft.
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So we commonly use the acronym HIFO which is hydraulics,
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engines, fuel, oxygen and electronics and so we have all sorts of readouts and ways to manage those systems from these seats.
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So basically we keep the jet healthy and monitor, make sure the jet's health is good, while we drive the jet to the target that we're gonna strike,
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put the jet in a position where we can strike the target and then fly home safely.
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What about the wings?
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I know everyone's wondering how do you kind of control the wings from up here?
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Where's that at?
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So the wing sweep's actually a manual control so if you look on your left side
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and on my right side we have a lever
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and you can see there's demarcations on the side here for where you're actually sweeping the wings
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and then we also have a duplicate readout here that'll move
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that shows you the actual position of the wings
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so you can put your set point here and monitor to make sure
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that it gets they're getting where you intend them to go.
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Now you guys can obviously drop a lot of bombs
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but I imagine once you drop those bombs I mean that's a lot of weight that's leaving the aircraft.
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I imagine the center of gravity is changing so I guess first what's
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that feel like when like all that weight comes off
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and how do you guys kind of handle that to make sure the aircraft can still fly?
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As weight leaves the jet the CG is going to ship
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and change which with the variable sweep wing that's something we have to keep a very close eye on.
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So we actually have our fuel management panels here
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and our fuel management system is a bunch of computers
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that can actually pump fuel forward
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or aft in the jet to help maintain the CG where we want it
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and the system is actually able to look forward 15 minutes to see, hey, am I going to drop any weapons in the near future?
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What do I need to do with the fuel now so that when the weapons leave the jet, the CG is where I want it to be.
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And I know with an aircraft this size, not everyone would know or assume you guys actually have ejection seats to punch out, you know, knock on, what if something happened?
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How is that kind of sequence?
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Because I know it's kind of intricate.
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The system is sort of complex, works in a couple different ways depending on where we have this knob your left
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and it's to my right we've got an injection mode knob where we can select auto and or manual.
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So in manual if you pull your seat goes and that's it.
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In auto everybody else who is in auto is part of an injection sequence.
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So typically in critical phases of flight our checklist drives us to have all crew members in auto.
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That way if one crew member punches out it starts a sequence
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that starts in the back with the O
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and the D then moves up front with the co
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and the pilot and then in that way we can eject everybody and worry less about interactions outside the aircraft.
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Hey Sam, how you doing?
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I'm Tech Sergeant Adam Sneavy.
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Welcome to the conventional maintenance shop.
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We're out here at the MAC pad.
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This is the munitions assembly conveyor.
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For conventional maintenance we like to think of it as Santa's workshop, where they build the bombs and everything, you know.
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So this is the bread and butter of where we make weapons go boom.
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Well, not here, but you know, hopefully down the line and they act as they're supposed to.
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Yeah, so in munitions, it's literally your team that builds the bombs that go onto the B1, which you just got to see.
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I mean, what's that experience like?
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That's a lot of responsibility.
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It's probably the best part about it, I'd say.
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This is actually doing it, seeing a product built at the end of the day.
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There's a lot of other systems that go along in running Munition Squadron to make everything run smoothly, but this is where you get to see your final product and this is the most gratifying thing.
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Alright Sam, so today what we're going to do is we're going to build a GBU 31 version one.
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It uses a 2,000 pound bomb body.
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This one is inert, you can tell, because it's blue.
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That makes me feel sick.
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There's no specific order that you have to go in with building these, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with the front.
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This is our nose plug, and all I need you to do is just screw it into the front there.
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This is quite heavy actually.
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They are very heavy.
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Is this literally the first step you all do is the nose plug or is this kind of the last thing?
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When we start to actually assemble it, this is one of the first things that we'll do.
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It's the easiest part of the build.
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We have to pull out all of these items.
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An inspector has to inspect them.
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lay everything out the fins back there
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which we'll get to later what you want to do is
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you want to kind of get in front of it hold
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on to it the back of your hand I got you in there
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and then screw it down nice okay cool is it tightening yep sweet there you go
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and as long as you can't remove it with your hand it's tight
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so that's gonna stay on there I say only tell it splits yeah so now
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that we're on the tail end of the bomb this is
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our fin is a KMU 556 this is what goes with GE 31 version These are our Strakes Aerosurfaces.
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These are going to go around the bomb to help to guide the bomb as it's falling through the air.
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One of the steps I was talking about earlier is when we take these out of the container, we actually have to test them on a computer.
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It's called a Cambry.
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Make sure the software is updated on everything and make sure it's good to go.
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So yeah, if you're ready, we'll grab the tools and we'll start putting this thing together.
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Until we feel it down in our soul Turn it up, no stop until we lose our control.
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Turn it up, until we feel it down in our soul.
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Turn it up, turn it up.
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Now as the day turned to dusk and the sun began to set here in West Texas, there was one thing I still had left to do.
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Catch the B-1 in action during one of its iconic burner takeoffs.
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Lucky for us, there was a nighttime mission scheduled to fly, which meant we were going to have the opportunity to capture just that.
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Alright, brief now complete.
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The crews here in Aircrew flight equipment to grab their gear.
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Last stop before they head out to the flight line to get ready for the takeoff.
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Should be pretty sweet.
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Now because of the classified nature of the mission, I'm not able to join them for the flight tonight.
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However, I told you
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that my goal is to get an upcoming shot of the V1 taking off at night in full afterburners.
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And the crew has graciously allowed me to join them in the cockpit to get the best seat in the house.
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So, I've got my headset ready.
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Why don't you join me?
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Let's see the V1 in action.
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Alright, crew ready for taxi, pilot and co.
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Rodeo.
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Ready deep.
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Alright, you want to taxi?
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Walk me through it again, yeah.
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Excellent.
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So, nozzle steering, so just push right to go right, push left to go left.
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So you see the yellow taxi line in front of us, you can see where it is right now, it's kind of like underneath your left leg.
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If you draw a line from your eyeballs to your left leg to the line, it's pretty much a straight line.
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Just keep it right there.
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Okay, so you push the top of the pedal or just any part of the pedal?
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Top of the pedal or the brakes if you need to slow down.
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Okay.
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And then you just kind of gently push left right on the whole rudder pedal to taxi.
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So you have the aircraft.
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Alright, my aircraft.
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There we go.
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You don't need to hold the stick.
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Oh yeah.
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It's a hands-free maneuver.
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Hands-free, there we go.
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Is this something that is an acquired learning skill to taxi the B1 or fairly easy?
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Going straight ahead is pretty easy.
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Finesse it into a parking spot takes a couple of reps students are learning their first sortie
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or two they generally screw it up.
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Sometimes it's so bad you get sent around you have to do a victory lap with a parking ramp
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and try it again.
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Just watching off so impressed like the turn radius seems pretty tight for an aircraft.
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We can pretty much pivot on our main gear.
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Wow.
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Yeah the the nose wheel will do a full 90 degrees left
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and right and then we can use differential thrust so
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if we're turning left we take the number four engine the
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far right engine push it up get a little differential thrust going as well.
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So to do that quick 180 is it just like a full left press on the pedal or something?
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Yeah it'd be a hard left turn and you'd want to slow way down
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because any forward speed you have is going to be added into your turn radius so.
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Do you prefer the night sorties or flying during the day?
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I love flying at night.
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That's pretty sweet.
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ATC's calm there's no traffic.
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Generally any thunderstorms or weather cells tend to die down as it cools off especially in the summer.
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Flying at night is awesome.
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There's 20 knots we'll just hold that if you need to gently tap the brakes.
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If you want to try it out, see how the brakes feel.
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Do you tap them both at the same time?
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Yep.
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Yeah, if you just tap one, the jet's going to lurch to that side.
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Is that the brakes I'm hitting?
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That's it.
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And you just feel it's gently slowing down.
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So the brakes on the B1, they're, think of analog brakes in your vehicle.
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Same thing, they're anti-skid.
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So we can, at this gross weight, if we touch down at say 160 knots on final, we could stop and about 3500 feet,
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4000 feet, if we really hammered on the brakes.
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All right, so let's slow it down to about 10 knots here, and then we'll have a slight left and a slight right turn, and we're gonna split the blue lights up here so the taxiway narrows down.
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We start a gentle left turn.
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Yep, perfect.
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Sweet.
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This is honestly like, one of the coolest things I've ever done.
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I've never gotten to do something like this.
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I'm sorry.
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Well, there you go, the mighty B-1 Lancer.
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Now, we've covered a ton of aircraft on this channel, but there's something about this one that stands out.
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It's in a class of its own.
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I hope you enjoyed following along and learning more about this incredible aircraft.
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Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already.
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I don't think I'm going to bed anytime soon, based off how loud that was, but I'll make sure to catch you guys in the next video.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 287 sentences and 4032 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:30. The speaker talks fast, about 188 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% 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 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- brake /bɹeɪk/ (noun) — A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or…
- bomber /ˈbɑmɚ/ (noun) — A military aircraft designed to carry and drop bombs.
- sweep /swiːp/ (verb) — To clean (a surface) by means of a stroking motion of a broom or brush.
- automobile /ˈɔː.tə.məˌbil/ (noun) — A type of motor vehicle designed to move on the ground under its own stored power and intended to carry a driver, a small number of additional passengers, and…
- establishment /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/ (noun) — The act or process of establishing; a ratifying or ordaining; settlement; confirmation.
- fighter /ˈfaɪtɚ/ (noun) — A person who fights; a combatant.
- conventional /kənˈvɛnʃənl̩/ (adjective) — Pertaining to a convention, as in following generally accepted principles, methods and behaviour.
- taxi /ˈtæksi/ (noun) — A vehicle that may be hired for single journeys by members of the public, particularly one with an automated meter to calculate the fare.
- pedal /ˈpɛdəl/ (noun) — A lever operated by one's foot that is used to control or power a machine or mechanism, such as a bicycle or piano.
- burner /ˈbɝnɚ/ (noun) — An element on a kitchen stove, hob, or cooktop that generates localized heat for cooking.
- radar /ˈɹeɪˌdɑɹ/ (noun) — In full primary radar: a method of detecting a distant object and determining its position, velocity, or other characteristics by analysing radio waves…
- thrust /θɹʌst/ (verb) — To make advance with force.
- bone /boʊn/ (noun) — A composite material consisting largely of calcium phosphate and collagen and making up the skeleton of most vertebrates.
- defensive /dɪˈfɛn.sɪv/ (adjective) — Intended for defence; protective.
- sequence /ˈsiː.kwəns/ (noun) — A set of things next to each other in a set order; a series.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- go into (verb) — To get involved in; to investigate or explore.
- look at (verb) — To observe or watch.
- come off (verb) — To become detached.
- come out /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ (verb) — To be discovered; to be revealed.
- cool off (verb) — To decrease in temperature, activity, or temper.
- cut out (verb) — To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something).
- die down (verb) — To become less virulent or strong; to subside.
- do for (verb) — To doom; to bring about the demise of someone; to injure or harm someone.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 81 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, I'm, we'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thrust /θɹʌst/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, withdraw /wɪðˈdɹɔ/, smoothly /ˈsmuːðli/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: establishment /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/, conventional /kənˈvɛnʃənl̩/, configuration /kənˌfɪɡ.əˈɹeɪ̯.ʃən/, efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/, reduction /ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: automobile /ˈɔː.tə.məˌbil/, establishment /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/, configuration /kənˌfɪɡ.əˈɹeɪ̯.ʃən/, operator /ˈɑpəˌɹeɪtɚ/, stability /stəˈbɪlɪti/
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 brake, bomber, sweep.
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 you're ready, we'll grab |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was designed · is considered · is often referred |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've always found · has done · I've ever done |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | degrees, which is · max, which is · power, which is |
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.