MythBusters (2011 season)

The pair now donned each other's mask and clothing, with padding as needed to match each other's body shape. They directed six volunteers (who were fans of the show) to approach them, starting from 90 feet and ending at 5 feet. Three worked with "Jamie," three with "Adam," and all six quickly realized the deception as soon as the imposter spoke. Six more volunteers then took part in a silent test; none of them suspected anything until they came face-to-face with the imposter.

Grant and Kari, both thoroughly familiar with Jamie's appearance and behavior, took part in a similar test, with subtle changes in "Jamie"'s wardrobe as distractions. Neither of them identified him as a fake until they were 5 feet away, though Kari began to have some doubts at 70 feet. Adam and Jamie classified the myth as plausible, depending on the circumstances under which the deception is carried out.

The team added steel plates to the rails in an attempt to stop the bullets and force them to transfer their energy to the merry-go-round. After making this change, they tried another deer slug and managed to turn it by 1.5 inches; a shot from an Armalite AR-50 rifle turned it 8 inches and knocked one of the plates off. At this point, the team declared the myth busted and set about replicating the results, with Tory redesigning the merry-go-round's bearing system to reduce friction and Kari and Grant attaching more bullet-stopping plates. They were finally able to keep the device turning with steady streams of 12-gauge deer slugs and .416 Barrett rifle fire.

For full-scale testing, they built a replica of Jason Bourne’s apartment, as seen in the film, and set up the toaster, magazine, and gas supply. Their first attempt did not give an explosion; with a higher gas concentration and a fireplace-starter log as the ignition, the entire room quickly caught fire and one wall came partway loose. Adam and Jamie declared the myth busted and made one last attempt, using enough methane to achieve a 9% concentration (the center of the flammability range) and a set of fans and diffuser hoses to mix the gas and air thoroughly. This time, they were able to get one wall to blow out and set the apartment on fire.

Grant and Tory visited a NASA research center and placed the rig in a tunnel designed to replicate the high wind speeds and cold temperatures typical of airplane cruising altitudes. When the toilet was dumped all at once, the liquid quickly atomized in the wind, leaving only a thin film to freeze on the fuselage. However, a slow leak allowed the ice to build up into a large mass that did not break loose until the rig “descended” to 12,000 feet.

To determine the ability of such a chunk to survive a fall to earth, Kari and a skydiver flew up to that altitude, threw a 35-pound ice block out of the plane, and jumped out after it as Grant and Tory tracked it from the ground. The block did not significantly melt during the fall and embedded itself deeply upon impact, prompting the team to declare the myth confirmed but unlikely due to the multiple mechanical failures needed to achieve the result.

After studying film footage of the Jesus Christ lizard running on water, Adam and Jamie decided to build separate footwear rigs to duplicate its leg movements. They called in Jessica Fortunato, a trained acrobat and gymnast, and had her try both rigs: Adam’s with hinged foot platforms and a long tail, and Jamie’s with concave foot cups and an outrigger frame held in front. She was unable to stay above water, whether unaided or using either of the rigs.

At this point, Adam and Jamie declared the myth busted and built a submersible bridge to replicate the results. After camouflaging it and setting up the camera at a particular angle, both were able to run across the surface until they went off the end of the bridge.

In order to eliminate these wall effects, Adam and Jamie built a 4-by-16-foot bubbler to place at the bottom of a swimming pool. After they added weights to keep the rig from floating up, Adam tried to swim across the pool and back through the bubbles. The trip proved difficult at 25% power and impossible at 100%. Adam and Jamie classified the myth as plausible, but for a different reason from the one expected – water currents holding the swimmer at the surface, rather than a density reduction causing him/her to sink.

Declaring the myth busted, the team did some small-scale tests with different explosives and placement techniques. A TNT charge drilled into the trunk shredded it at the blast point, while an ANFO charge laid in grooves cut along the wood grain caused some degree of splitting.

In one last full-scale test, the team chose a 100-foot Ponderosa pine and fitted it with 25 pounds of ANFO, laid in grooves cut near the core. The resulting blast tore the tree into hundreds of pieces.

Adam and Jamie built several full-scale torpedoes, took them to a lake, and set up a target ship 800 ft (244 m) from shore. Two accuracy tests – first with the full propellant charge (as a rocket motor), then with a reduced one – caused the torpedo to go airborne and miss the target completely. For the next two trials on payload delivery, they used a tether to guide the torpedo, but were unable to score a hit even after they moved the ship to within 200 ft (61 m) of shore. Finally, they removed the tether and reduced the rocket power further, allowing them to hit the ship and set it on fire with the incendiary payload. They classified the myth as plausible, since they could find no record of the device being used in combat.

For a full-scale test, the team loaded a semi trailer with 1,000 bottles of champagne and some Riesling, then set fire to it. All three agreed that the sound of the exploding corks resembled machine guns or firecrackers; however, no corks flew farther than 50 feet. Based on this result, the team declared the myth busted, then set up a gatling gun-like rig to rotate the bottles over a burner and launch their corks straight ahead. Grant, dressed in a fire suit, stood in front of the rig and took several direct hits.

With smaller sails and higher prop speeds, the cart rolled backward once air began to spill around the sail edges. The combination of a large sail and an elevated fan did result in the cart moving forward; Grant theorized that this was caused by the sail "reflecting" a portion of the prop’s thrust backward (in fact, the air hitting the sail flows outwards, towards the top, bottom and sides, but, due to the sail's curvature, the flow is angled slightly backwards). A larger-scale test, with a small jet engine mounted on a skateboard and using a fire-resistant sail, gave the same effect.

Finally, the team set up a full-scale test on a lake, using a swamp boat with a 40-horsepower fan. The boat reached a speed of 20 mph (32 km/h) with the fan facing backward and the sail not in use. After the fan was reversed and the sail was hoisted, the boat traveled forward at 3 mph (5 km/h) once the team fine-tuned the fan’s aim.

All tests used a basic square sail design.

Jamie then built a new device from a short pipe the same diameter as the hubcap, with the free end sharpened into blades. This design tore up Adam’s bodywork, popped one tire, and pulled the other one off its rim, leaving the car sitting on its chassis.

Next, Adam mounted a gun and a full ammunition hopper on his hood and chased Jamie, who drove a target car with the rear windshield removed. He was able to riddle the rear end and hit Jamie's head and seat a few times with the fixed mount; in the aimed-mount test, he got so many hits in such a short time that Jamie called an early end to the run.

After re-checking their own footage, the team heard a sound that might have been a spinning bullet. Once winter came, they visited Caples Lake in the Sierra Nevada and dug out a target area on its frozen surface for further work. Testing gave no results until they aimed at the center of their target site, allowing for a backward ricochet instead of a forward one. The team found the bullets from these last tests to be spinning in place on their side, leading them to declare the myth confirmed.

They then watched Dave fire standard blank cartridges from various distances and found that they could not see his muzzle flash at all past 200 yd (183 m). When he switched to Hollywood-style blanks with much heavier gunpowder loads, they could easily see the flash out to 1,200 yd (1,097 m). Finally, they set up a blank-firing rifle at 200 yards, wired to a timer and paintball gun; when one man pulled the trigger, a paintball would be fired directly at the other’s chest after 231 ms. Neither was able to dodge any shots until the rifle was moved to 500 yd (457 m) (600 ms delay) and loaded with Hollywood blanks. Adam and Jamie declared the myth busted, since an actual sniper would take precautions to ensure that the target would not see the muzzle flash.

For a final test at terminal velocity, roughly 120 miles per hour, Tory threw two pig carcasses out of a helicopter at 600 ft (183 m), after which they were X-rayed to determine injuries. The pavement drop resulted in 17 fractures, a shattered pelvis, and a decapitation, while the water drop yielded seven fractures and a broken neck. Since no water landing produced the same level of impact force or injury as a fall from the same height onto pavement, the team declared the myth busted.

For full-scale testing, the team outfitted a go-kart to match the mass and top swimming speed of a typical sailfish and hooked their line to it from a star-drag reel. Kari drove it at 68 mph, while Tory applied drag and Grant measured the temperature. The first two runs gave a peak of 530°F and smoked without any fire, even after Tory used larger amounts of flammable lubricant on the second run.

Declaring the myth busted, the team brought in a professional motorcycle racer and his sidecar rig to achieve higher speeds. Tory also changed the lubricant out for even more flammable engine starting fluid. Runs at 140 and 180 mph gave temperatures over 700°F, with the second of these causing the line to melt without burning. Finally, Tory set the reel on fire by exposing it to an open flame.

They set up six mirrors to bounce light back and forth down the length of the shop, using a spotlight as the source. Polished metal mirrors gave 1.13 lux, but caused the beam to spread out after only a few reflections. When modern glass mirrors were used instead, the light level registered at 0.49 lux and the beam stayed focused longer. Adam and Jamie realized that the light needed to scatter in order to illuminate the room.

At Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, they set up a hangar area as a full-scale tomb and brought in six glass mirrors and a 7,000-watt spotlight. After adjusting the mirrors, they measured a light level of 2.3 lux and could easily see their way around. Once the sky cleared, they reflected sunlight into the tomb and found a peak of 2.5 lux until the sun’s position shifted, throwing off the mirrors’ alignment. Finally, Jamie stood in the light beam, which scattered in the air when it hit his white shirt and gave 8.6 lux. The need to keep adjusting the mirrors, and the unlikely prospect of finding several of them ready to use after thousands of years underground, led them to declare the myth “plausible but ridiculous.”

Next, Grant and Tory tried to sandwich Kari’s car from either side and managed to stop her, though they began to spin out somewhat. The two men then built separate car-stoppers: side paddles to attach to two rescue cars’ front bumpers and maneuver to block in the runaway (Grant), and a hood-mounted spear to hook the rescue and runaway cars together so the rescuer can slow them both down from behind (Tory). Both rigs worked without endangering either Kari or her rescuer(s).

For full-scale tests, they used a mast fitted with sensors at depths of 6 in (15 cm) and Template:Convert/3, with a fifth at the surface. The first two depths were intended to represent the depth at which a swimmer's torso would be submerged if he were floating or treading water. A 10 lb (5 kg) charge of TNT was set off at a depth of 15 ft (5 m) and a set distance from the sensors (Template:Convert/3).

Using a pressure threshold of 87 psi (corresponding to a 50% mortality rate from the shock wave), Adam and Jamie found that a floating person would survive at 30 ft (9 m), while greater depths led to pressures likely to cause death. At longer distances, the readings fell below 87 psi. Based on the 30-foot results, they declared the myth confirmed. Jamie attributed these results to the fact that much of the energy from the underwater pressure wave dissipated into transverse waves when it reached the surface.

Using an armor sample (1⁄2 in (13 mm) paper vs. 1⁄32 in (1 mm) steel) placed over a block of clay, they tested resistance to blunt force, swords, and arrows. The paper did as well as steel in the sword and arrow tests, failing only the blunt-force test, so the team built a full suit of paper armor to match against a period-accurate steel counterpart.

Each team member ran one of three timed courses in both armor types to evaluate speed, endurance, and agility; paper outperformed steel in all three. Finally, they attacked the suits with arrows, swords, and two different firearms - an 18th-century flintlock pistol and a 19th-century .45 revolver. Both armor types resisted every attack except the .45, leading the team to classify the myth as plausible. They pointed out, though, that the paper armor could quickly begin to disintegrate if it got wet or took repeated blows (both of which happened during the full-scale tests).

At this point, Adam and Jamie decided to try and improve a motorcycle's aerodynamic performance so that it would use less fuel and give lower emissions. They built a teardrop-shaped shell to cover the entire vehicle, with a tubular steel frame and heat-shrink plastic sheeting. Jamie then drove simulated city and highway courses at Naval Air Station Alameda on a modern motorcycle, with the shell both on and off. The shell gave the best fuel efficiency and lowest CO2 emissions, but did not perform better than the cars on the other three pollutants. They classified the myth as busted, and Jamie attributed this result to the fact that car pollution technology has advanced faster than that for motorcycles.

With help from Institute personnel, they built a rig to launch an RPG directly toward a remote-controlled gun of the same caliber as that used in the film (a Smith & Wesson Model 460 revolver). After a failed first test, they were able to hit the RPG with a bullet and see the former explode in midair. Separate shots of the two weapons on an 80-foot test range, the same distance as the film scene, led them to calculate that the bullet and RPG would collide 16 feet in front of the RPG shooter. However, the particular rounds used for these tests had fuze systems that would not arm until they had flown roughly 60 feet.

The team set up two dummies 80 feet apart, outfitted with pork-belly abdomens and foil burst gauges to evaluate injuries. Assuming that the film RPG might have had a defective fuze, the team set up a target 16 feet in front of the RPG dummy, backed the launcher up to ensure a detonation, and fired. Both dummies survived without injury, though molten metal flew through the air just to each side of the handgun dummy. The need for a bad fuze, the forward direction of the explosion, and the fact that the intended target survived only through sheer luck led the team to call the myth busted.