Let's Learn English! Topic: Flight! 🪂✈️🐦
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Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about flight. Flight refers to flying. Uh birds, airplanes, the things that are in the air above us. I always wonder what was it like thousands of years ago when humans looked up and they saw birds flying in the air and they dreamt of being able to fly. In this lesson, we'll talk about flight. We'll talk about everything. We'll

that flies in the air. We'll talk about birds. We'll talk about airplanes. We'll talk about helicopters. All of the things that fly. Um and obviously the things that humans invented so they could fly as well. So once again, welcome to this English lesson about flight.

To fly. So let's start with the verb. The verb to fly. We use this verb to talk about everything that is in the air. An airplane will fly. A bird will fly. A bat will fly. A helicopter will fly. So when you want to talk about something, you

moves through the air beautifully. Something that soars. Something that glides. Something we have a few other verbs as well. The general verb and the most correct verb to use is the verb to fly. And you can also use this verb to talk about what you're going to do. So this airplane is flying.

And you could say, I am going to fly to Paris next week. So, the verb, the most common verb and the best verb to use is the verb to fly when you're talking about birds and airplanes and other things.

And then we have the word flight. So, flight simply refers to the same thing and you can use uh sentences like this like the bird was in flight. These people are in flight right now. So, flight refers to again everything that can do what humans can't do on their own. Uh birds, bats. Bats are a little scary but we have the word flight, the noun flight.

what makes flight possible? So when you need to fly most of the time you need to have wings. You need to have a wing. So an airplane will have a wing on each side. A bird will have a wing as well. And the wing is the part of the airplane that

the part of the bird or the flying squirrel by the way there are flying squirrels as well that allows that thing or that animal to fly. Um there are other ways for things and animals to fly but a wing is probably the most common. When you see an eagle flying in the sky it has two large wings. When you see an airplane at the airport it will have two

two large wings and then smaller wings at the back. They're not actually called wings at the back but you will have two really large wings on an airplane and a bird will have wings as well. And why do you need a wing? So, we're getting a little scientific here. Uh you need to generate what we call lift. This is what allows things and animals to fly. The ability to generate lift means that

wing allows air to move faster over the top and slower underneath and that creates two different pockets of pressure and my understanding is the low pressure is what generally generates the lift. This is not a science lesson but in order to fly this is what's actually happening. Air is going faster over the top of the wing creating low pressure and

was going to say creating suction. That's a different word a bit and air going under the bottom of the wing either has the normal air pressure or high pressure. So, it creates lift and it makes the object or the airplane or the bird go up. Birds do something else to help generate that list lift. I'll talk about that in a moment as well.

Then we have other ways to fly and that is one way is to have something that's lighter than air. So this is a hot air balloon. It doesn't have wings. It doesn't use that to generate lift. Instead, inside the balloon is something that is lighter than the air. That might simply be hot air.

That's why it's called a hot air balloon but it basically has something inside that allows it to rise through the air. In the past, um it's instead of hot air, it has been other things um like I don't, sorry, I don't wanna say the other things. I can't remember what they are but I

you as a child ever get a helium balloon, you'll notice that it floats in the air because it is lighter than air. Um but yes, hot air balloon. Have I ever been on a hot air balloon ride? No, I have not. Would I ever go in a hot air balloon? I don't know. I'm scared of heights so that would be I'll have to say probably not. We'll we'll see. I did go zip lining. So, I

Uh altitude. So, when something is in the air and usually we're talking about airplanes and helicopters. When something is in the air,

Um we say it's height by using the word altitude. So, if an airplane is 500 meters above the ground, we would say it's altitude is 500 meters. Sometimes, altitude refers to meters above sea level. There's kind of two ways of measuring it to my understanding but uh basically, altitude would be the distance um

you would measure from whatever is flying to the ground or from whatever is flying to sea level. The altitude. Early flying machines. Let me see where I am in my lesson here. So my understanding is that there were a lot of different early flying machines but we do always look at the Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk or

Carolina I think. I might have my facts wrong. Uh who built the Wright Brothers Flyer which was a powered one of the first powered airplanes. I think the first powered airplane but we would call these early flying machines. So when you're talking about the history of flight you

you're talking about the history of manned flight. You know flight that takes place with a person. We usually talk about the Wright brothers and I don't know exactly how they built it. I do know that they were excellent bicycle mechanics and it had a small very low horsepower engine but they were able to fly along the beach. I often wonder if they flew along the beach and

because they could use the wind to help them or so that if they crashed in the sand, it was soft. I don't always know the full details but uh if you look at pictures, you'll see early hot air balloons, early flying machines, some that didn't work um but if you do some research, it's pretty fun to do and we call

of this aviation. Sorry I shouldn't say all of it. When we talk about human beings flying using early flying machines and airplanes we call it aviation. So if you know someone who's going into aviation they might be becoming an aviation mechanic. They might be becoming a pilot. They are they work in the world of human flight using airplanes and other flying machines. And

we call so that is the general term. We call it aviation. So a few simple terms. Aircraft is used to refer to anything that we built as humans that flies. Generally we use this to to refer to airplanes. So this is an aircraft and it's from KLM which is the airline in the Netherlands. I tried to represent a couple countries here.

We also have airplane to specifically talk about this kind of machine. So, aircraft is a general term for anything man-made that flies whereas airplane refers to this type of machine. Two wings, engines, sometimes it's a passenger airplane and sometimes it's a cargo airplane and usually in English, we just say plane. We don't always say airplane. You can use both for sure.

have what's called a glider. So a glider is a type of aircraft that has no engine. So it needs another airplane. It needs an airplane to tow it up to a very high height so that it can glide. So it has really big wind wings and no engine and it will just slowly glide to the ground. So not only is glider the name but

this machine. It is also the verb we use. So a glider will glide. It's supposed to be very peaceful. There's no engine noise and you just kind of use the winds to kind of glide and slowly go down and up a little bit too if you can catch the wind properly. Then we have a helicopter. So I think I might have mentioned this before. When I was a kid this is one of the things that

was hoping to be able to do someday. Not work for the LAPD but I dreamt of flying a helicopter. So even though I'm afraid of heights for some reason I thought it was cool. I liked there were a few TV shows like Airwolf where the lead character had a helicopter and so it seemed fun to me and but I never pursued that. Uh when you talk about something you wanted to do that you didn't do you say that you didn't pursue it. And

and of course we have pilots and copilots. A pilot would be the main person who flies the plane and the copilot would be equally trained and equally competent to fly the plane as well. Um but for really large planes um you almost always have two pilots. A pilot and a copilot. For a few reasons. One, when everything goes well, you

only need one pilot but sometimes things go wrong and then it's good to have two.

It's also because sometimes a flight is so long that they can take turns. You might have a crew of three pilots where one is sleeping. One is the pilot and one is the co-pilot and they'll rotate as they fly a really long flight because like most humans, we can't do something for more than seven or eight hours which without becoming a bit tired uh or fatigued. So, it's good to have a co-pilot.

And then we have of course takeoff and landing. So, takeoff refers to when the plane is on the ground and then it uses its engines to go up in the air. If you're sitting in a passenger plane, you you get pushed back in your seat during takeoff and the plane shakes a little bit. Here, let me mimic takeoff. It's like you get pushed back in your seat and it shakes a little bit. Hopefully, not too much. And then I always like the part where

know the plane's shaking and it's rumbling a little bit and you can hear the wheels on the tarmac. Um and then also it gets a little quieter. That's my favorite part. Just as the plane, you know, you sink in your seat a little bit and the plane goes up and then it gets just a little bit quieter. So, yes. So, you have the plane going down the runway. It's a little bit loud and shaky and then it quiets down a little bit and then it

you are in the air. Landing, I don't like as much. I'm always worried when the airplane is landing because you just keep going down and sometimes it's not smooth. Sometimes you're like, you can feel the plane kinda and then all of a sudden, you hear the wheels hit and then the plane levels out. So, that is the landing. Um I don't have a picture of it but I

little while ago at Toronto Airport, an airplane flipped upside down. It landed and then it flipped upside down. Um yeah, that was it was actually I think it was just before one of my kids was flying home from university. So, I was like, I hope their plane doesn't do the same thing.

So you have departures and arrivals. So when you go to the airport. I didn't want to make this lesson about air travel but I felt like I do need to mention take off and landing and when you go to the airport to go somewhere you find the departures area so that you can depart from

then when you land at an airport people can meet you at the arrivals section of the airport. So I've been to both. I've been to the departures section to drop people off and wave goodbye and I've been to the arrivals section to pick someone up from the airport. Um so you drop people off at the departures part of the terminal and they come in at the arrivals part of the terminal.

like air travel. It's pretty cool. I think it's pretty. It's one of the coolest things that humans have invented. Let's switch gears a little bit and let's talk about flying animals. So I didn't just put birds because there are more than just birds that fly. Um but let's talk about um how humans were inspired to fly. What they were looking at that made them think maybe we can do that someday too. So here we go.

bird. So, the other day, um in my short English lesson, I was out um videotaping and I saw a red wing blackbird. So, this is the second reason why I thought I should do a lesson on flight. Um I was walking along and I saw the bird on a fence. I think it's actually in the video um if you look in the um

the chat. I think Nightbot is sharing that every once in a while but it was a really cool bird and then it flew away. Birds fly. It's amazing. It must have seemed amazing. Almost like magic to ancient people. They probably looked up and thought how is that happening? How is that bird flying? But a bird would be the most common type of animal that flies.

And a bird does something a little different. A bird will flap, flap its wings. So, an airplane has rigid wings and it generates lift by moving through the air. A bird has wings that it can flap. This is the verb we use. As the bird flaps its wings, that will generate lift.

So, that's how a bird is able to fly and also because a bird has feathers. The feathers are

much help the bird to fly. Like a bird wing can change shape, right? It has all these feathers and as it flies, it can it can fold its wings in and then it can spread them out and it can do different things with its wings and its feathers so that it can fly. We often find feathers that

on our farm because we have geese and there are all kinds of birds that fly and live on our farm. So every once in a while you will find a feather and it's very very cool. So there's a kind of bird that's called a flightless bird. So even though this lesson is about flight I thought I should mention that birds like penguins are flightless. We have chickens that

they can sort of fly. Like they're kind of in between. Our chickens can fly enough sometimes to if they can climb on their chicken coop, they can fly over the fence just. Like they can't fly uh for 100 meters but they can fly two meters.

but some birds can't fly at all. Like an ostrich is a flightless bird. A penguin is a flightless bird. Um basically we describe them by saying that they can't do this activity. The bird is flightless. And then birds sometimes especially pet birds have their wings clipped. Uh and I wanted to talk about this because when a bird has its wings clipped then it can't fly.

we use this phrase to talk about people as well. So, let's say that let's say there's a race car driver and he's told that he can't drive the car for three weeks because he did something wrong. You might say he had his wings clipped. Let's say that someone was prevented from doing an activity they like to do. We would say they have their wings clipped. A good example of this would be a teenager who

a teenager does something bad and the parents say you're not allowed to go out for two weeks you're grounded we would say they have their wings clipped. So I'm not sure about all the details of this or whether it's even kind to do this but when a bird has its wings clipped it means it cannot fly.

then a bird will perch. So we have the verb to flap. A bird will flap its wings. When a bird sits on a branch or a twig or even in its cage it will have something called a perch or even if the bird is on your arm like if you were training falcons or something like that the bird will perch. So when a bird uses its feet it

grab something to stay in one spot, we use the verb to perch. This bird has decided to perch on this small branch. So, that simply means the bird is going to sit on that branch.

flying squirrel. So, I wanted to put this one in here because I wanted to make sure you knew that other animals can fly and also because the word squirrel is very hard for English learners to pronounce. This is a flying squirrel. Not every squirrel can fly. The squirrels that live by me. The squirrels that live on my farm in the trees can't fly. But there are places in the world where

there are flying squirrels. I would actually say this. They're more like gliding squirrels. So they put out their body. I wouldn't call them wings so that they can float down to the ground. Should I say the word squirrel a few more times? This is a flying squirrel. It can climb up a tree and then it can jump off the tree and kind of fly to the ground. A flying squirrel.

there's also bats. We do have bats on our property. We like bats. Bats come out at night and they fly around and they eat insects. So the more bats you have on your property the less insects like mosquitoes you will have. So the more bats the better even though I find bats a little bit creepy. They're yeah the flying squirrel is cute. It

the bat is a little scary in my mind. I'm not, yeah. I like bats. I don't like seeing the bats. I like it when they do their work at night when I can't see them eating all of the insects. And then of course, let's talk about a few human activities related to flight. So, we have things like skydiving. Skydiving is when you jump out of a plane and

something I will never do and then you open your parachute and you slowly float to the ground. So again, you jump out of the plane. Your rip cord might automatically be pulled when you jump or you might actually go in free fall for a while. That's where you just fall through the sky until the altitude says whatever you want it to be and then you would pull your rip cord and your parachute and

would open up and then you would slowly float to the ground.

Why would Bob not go skydiving? Number one, I'm afraid of heights. Number two, I'm afraid the parachute won't open. I'm I have two fears. One, I don't want to be that high in the sky. Two, I'm afraid the parachute will not open or we sometimes say deploy. The parachute might not deploy. That's just frightening for me. Uh we also have hang gliding. I think this has been replaced a bit with paragliding maybe. Uh

I'm not sure exactly what is more popular right now but hang gliding is when you have a large kite like contraption. I'll call it so that you can kind of glide and float through the air. So, you would go hang gliding and enjoy the slow gliding descent to the ground.

We also have something called a jet pack. I think this is called a hydro jet pack. There's also jet packs where you have jet engines. Um and basically it's like a backpack. A backpack is a bag you use when you go to school and you put your books in it. A jet pack looks the same except it has jet engines or in this case it has water nozzles that shoot high pressure water so that you can

pretend to fly or fly. I mean, you're not pretending. You're actually doing it so that you can fly. I would try this, I think. Although, I wonder how you probably have to be quite strong to uh use a jetpack. And then paragliding. So, paragliding is kind of a combination you can see between skydiving and hang gliding or one of those other things. So, basically, you are flying through the air on this

type of wing and kind of gliding to the ground. I'm not an expert on paragliding um but uh it's also something I'm never going to try. I did have a slide for hot air balloon but it's not in the folder. So, this is the that was the last slide. I'm I was thinking hot air balloon is the last slide um but that's it. That's the end of the lesson.

Hi, Bob the Canadian here. Thank you for listening to this English podcast lesson. If you would like to support me in the work that I do as an online English teacher, please visit patreon.com slash bobthecanadian.