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It may not look like it, but we're professionals.

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Do us a favor.

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Don't try this at home! Whoa!

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On this high-flag episode of Mythbusters...

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One word for this. What?

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The whole team tackles one massive myth.

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Everything in your mind is saying, don't do it.

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Testing the tale of a spectacular mid-air mishap...

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pushes everyone to the limit.

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This whole story is just totally absurd.

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They'll need luck...

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for science...

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courage...

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This is the best day to ever!

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and some serious science...

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That's perfect.

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to tackle the myth of the man who fell to earth...

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Grant, take it away.

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struck a seesaw...

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and launched a legend.

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Who are the Mythbusters?

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Adam Savage

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True and fancy...

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and Jamie Heidemann

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You just need a little extra lubrication.

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Between them more than 30 years of special effects experience...

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I'll take you to Jamie after a while.

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Joining them...

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Tori Balechi

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Grant Imahara

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Let's go! Come on! I'm gonna be rich!

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and Carrie Byron

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That was a rush!

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They don't just tell the myths...

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they put them to the test.

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Little old for dolls, aren't we?

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This is not a doll.

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This is a demonstration model for the next story we gotta do.

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Which comes right from the fansite.

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Okay, tell me more.

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I'm a skydiver, right?

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and I fall in through the air...

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and my parachute has utterly failed.

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Looking desperately down at the ground for something...

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to break my fore-eye spy...

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our children's playground...

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and a seesaw...

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with a little girl at the other end.

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Not worrying about her, I aim for this end of the seesaw...

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go straight up right at the last second.

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I hit the seesaw...

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and catapult that poor little girl...

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up to the top of a seven-story building...

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where amazingly she lands safely.

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Wow. Sounds almost too good to be true.

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I thought the same thing.

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Improbable, yes.

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But impossible?

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Harachutes do sometimes fail to open.

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If he's jumping over a town or city...

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it's feasible he could drop over a playground.

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Common sense and basic physics...

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tells us that if he hits the seesaw...

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that lonely little girl is going...

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somewhere.

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But seven stories high...

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and she lives?

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Well, don't knock it till you've tried it.

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Jamie, I don't know about you...

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but I feel like we could just go for this one.

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Sure, we can do it right outside.

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All we need is a regulation seesaw.

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And a correctly weighted little girl.

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And a skydiver.

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Terrific. Let's do it.

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When I was a kid, seesaws were long wooden planks.

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And that's what we started looking for...

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but it turns out no one makes those anymore.

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Seasaws are made out of steel...

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and there are as many designs as there seem to be playgrounds.

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So we have chosen a mid-range, middle-of-the-road...

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simple steel seesaw.

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And that's what I'm about to build.

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For Adam, building a two-kid play thing is a one-man job.

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Inside 30 minutes, he welds a central pivot...

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from two-inch pipes at a couple of elbow joints.

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The bench itself is just a 10-foot slab of hollow steel.

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Now I've just got to attach one to the other.

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But here's the problem.

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To hit terminal velocity, the unlucky skydiver would have to fall...

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from at least 600 feet.

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So to get around that problem, at least for this first test...

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what I'm doing is trading altitude for weight.

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When I fill these barrels with water, they'll be much heavier than a man...

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so we can then drop them from a much lower height...

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and get a more or less guaranteed hit.

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And the impact for us should be exactly the same.

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That's the theory. And they can't wait to put it into practice.

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So they've picked a drop zone that's real close to home...

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the parking lot behind M5.

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And that's just getting welded down at the plate?

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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It's a stunt that will scare the neighbors.

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Given the massive forces at play...

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only a lunatic would choose this moment to trial a new technology.

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This quick release, which holds up to 10,000 pounds...

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is going to be the mechanism by which we drop our weight on the seesaw.

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And normally we'd use it in a pull-on-a-wire mode...

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now it's got an automatic cylinder release...

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which, when we connect a battery from our viewing site...

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and I say, connect the battery!

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It's going to drop the weight right on our seesaw.

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Now for the checklist. They've got the crane...

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they've got the weight...

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and Adam's built a teeter-totter that both sees and saws.

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Okay, so it is in fact a seesaw.

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It is in fact a seesaw.

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I want one of these in my office.

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All we need now is a full-scale victim...

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and this one is almost too cute to catapult.

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Almost.

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So shall we name her Ariel?

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Nice call, Jamie.

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But it's best not to get too attached to your missiles.

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Our little girl over here is supposed to be an average six-year-old...

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and so we've made her weigh 50 pounds.

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Now, if the physics in this story are correct...

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the water barrels, when they hit this end of the seesaw...

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are going to launch her straight up about 70 feet or seven stories.

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I've calculated, filling the barrels with 1,150 pounds of water...

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and then dropping them from 75 feet...

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should exactly match the Skydiver's freefall impact force of 85,000 foot-pounds.

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So I'm going to pull the safety, but you know what?

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I don't want to be anywhere on this lot when we drop this thing.

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I was thinking we should be up over there.

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I was thinking the same thing.

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So with the elements in place, Adam and Janie head for the high ground.

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Right now, I describe the situation as mayhem in potential.

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Soon we'll have actual mayhem.

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And that actual mayhem is now just moments away.

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All right, here we go.

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Skydiver's seesaw in...

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3, 2, 1...

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Oh, darn, the seesaw broke.

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It just kind of like folded in half.

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The bench is buckled, but the full extent of this disaster...

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is best assessed from ground level.

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It not only crushed it right at the pivot point...

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but it also crushed it right at the end here.

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So, you know, that's a heck of a lot of force.

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A lot more than we considered.

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We're going to have to rethink this thing.

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Yeah, even if this was a solid bar of steel, I don't think it would have taken it.

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Yeah.

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I swear, this is the best part of the job, reviewing the high-speed footage.

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I want to see if she even comes off the ground.

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I think she does. I saw her flip a couple of times.

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Little Ariel launched it exactly 23 miles per hour...

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and then flew 20 feet high.

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What was that?

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Come back.

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Come back. I'm gonna tear this.

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That's barely two stories, way short of the mythical seven.

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But with all the substitutions, this test was always more likely to be...

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an indication than an indictment.

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I can't help but feel this nagging feeling in my head...

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that there's a big difference between a thousand pounds of water in steel cans...

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and a soft, hundred-and-some-odd pound skydiver falling at terminal velocity.

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Now, we need to figure out, if we're going to make this work,

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how to get all of that energy over there to come over here to the little girl...

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without wasting itself on breaking things in the process.

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In short, the fact that a home-built seesaw cracked under the weight of three sharp-edged barrels...

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doesn't prove or disprove the myth.

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And with the help of Tori, Grant and Carrie, things will get better.

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Still to come, Jamie goes high-tech on the high jump.

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That's perfect.

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It's awesome.

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But next, Grant and Tori risk their lives to legitimize the legend.

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The Common Playground Seasaw is about as safe or as dangerous as you want to make it.

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But could it really toss a girl on top of a seven-story building?

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Well, it flipped an elephant, right?

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Dude, there is a lot to do in this myth.

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Yeah, there is, but I'm ahead of you.

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I'm not going to let you down.

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Dude, there is a lot to do in this myth.

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Yeah, there is, but I'm ahead of you.

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Reinforcements should be arriving now.

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What do you need?

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Okay, you know the seesaw myth that we're working on?

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Yeah.

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We need a way first to calculate the terminal velocity of our skydivers.

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Specifically in the myth it's stated that he is wearing a camera suit.

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That's a specific kind of skydiving suit.

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We need to know how fast he's going.

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Okay, cool.

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What else?

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Well, we need to have a delivery system for the skydiver to put him on target at terminal velocity.

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A giant crane?

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We'll figure it out.

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All right, we'll see you later.

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Great. Always have to be the hero.

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So on the very next misty morning, the team arrives at skydance skydiving

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to see just how slowly a man can fall in a camera suit.

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Grants are designated diver and Nick Armstrong's here to point him in the right direction.

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Down.

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So this is the camera suit?

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Yes, it is.

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Can you tell us a little bit about it?

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Sure.

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It's different from most of our skydiving suits in that it's built specifically for videographers.

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The key design difference is a wing-like flap from the elbows to the hips

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that should give added air resistance.

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So you can get a lot slower with one of these suits on?

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Absolutely.

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Grants not licensed to go solo, so he's doing a tandem jump.

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Nick's wearing the camera suit and a fancy alti tracker wrist computer

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to log the details of his descent.

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He and Grant are both going to go up.

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They're both going to jump at the same time.

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And when Grant gives Nick the signal, he's going to spread out as far as possible

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to see if he can slow down his descent.

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And when he gets off the plane, I'm going to take that, download into computer

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and we'll have a graph that will tell us all the speeds.

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Now after Nick is done with the spread eagle position,

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then he's going to try flapping his wings.

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Is flapping your wings going to make you slow down more?

228
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I don't know.

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Maybe it'll take your mind off the fact that you're falling without a parachute.

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For a veteran skydiver, flapping your wings sounds a touch undignified,

231
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but it's worth a shot.

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When the plane hits two miles high, the passengers push off.

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Once the guys get situated, Nick initiates part one of the test, spreading those tiny wings.

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The result is just as predicted.

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Relative to Grant, he does seem to reduce his speed.

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A few seconds later, Nick tries flapping like a giant pelican to see if that slows him down.

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Team Imahara makes a perfect four point landing.

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Nicely done.

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You made it!

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And our eye in the sky has a fair idea of what worked and what didn't.

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So he opened up his arms and he was gone just like that.

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So when he reset, he tried to start flapping. How'd that go?

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Yeah, I saw him come back down and they started flapping his arms

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and he was just falling at the same speed I was.

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To confirm Grant's account, Carrie downloads the data from Nick's wrist computer,

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and the graph couldn't be more clear.

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When Nick opened up his camera suit and went completely spread out so he had the most surface area,

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he slowed down to about 114 miles an hour.

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But over here, this is where he started flapping his wings like a cartoon to see if he could slow down.

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You know, goofy style. That didn't seem to work too well.

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So 114 miles per hour looks like the speed to aim for.

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But Grant remembered a crucial part of the story they've overlooked, so Tori needs to suit up.

253
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:26,000
We need to send Nick up again, because amidst specifically said that the skydiver tried to land on his head.

254
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:34,000
In other words, he fell spread-eagled like the last test, but then at the last second tried to land the jump.

255
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:38,000
And I'm guessing that even if the guy only went perpendicular for a second or two,

256
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:41,000
it could significantly change the speed at which he hit the seesaw.

257
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:49,000
They all assume the standard frog position.

258
00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:55,000
It takes 10 full seconds at at least 600 feet of free fall to reach terminal velocity.

259
00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:00,000
Then Nick tries going vertical.

260
00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:08,000
It's harder than it looks. A few seconds later, he tries again.

261
00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:15,000
Hopefully Nick stayed upright long enough for the computer to register any change in velocity.

262
00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:18,000
Then at the last second, he tries to land on his feet.

263
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:22,000
He kind of closes up into a smaller position, and his speed shoots up a little bit.

264
00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:26,000
But since it's only one second, he gets to about 122 miles an hour.

265
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:31,000
Now that is the important number right there, because that's going to be the final speed at which he hits the seesaw.

266
00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:38,000
After the break, the super seesaw takes shape.

267
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:44,000
Three, two, while Adam discovers a small-scale miracle.

268
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:47,000
Wow! That tells me there might really be something to this.

269
00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:54,000
For just the second time in Mythbusters history, the whole team has pulled together to test one fantastic fable.

270
00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:59,000
The skydiver who hit a seesaw and sent a little girl seven stories high.

271
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:04,000
If that's not too hard to swallow, the myth says she survived the adventure.

272
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:08,000
But that car park catastrophe still haunts Adam.

273
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:15,000
It's not looking good for this myth, man. I mean, if our regulation seesaw made of steel, can't come close to handling the forces,

274
00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:21,000
can't transfer the energy from the skydiver to the little girl, then this thing's busted before we've seen anything fly.

275
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:27,000
Yeah, the forces involved are really enormous, but there's nothing to stop us from improving on that,

276
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:31,000
just to make sure that we're not going to be in the same position.

277
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:36,000
And Jamie has some grand plans. It may not be the best seesaw ever.

278
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:40,000
Who knows what NASA has locked away, but he's aiming high.

279
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:44,000
We want to make sure that we're not going to be in the same position.

280
00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:49,000
But we're going to have to make sure that we're not going to be in the same position.

281
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:53,000
And we're going to be in the same position.

282
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,000
And we're not going to be in the same position.

283
00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:00,000
Who knows what NASA has locked away, but he's aiming high.

284
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:08,000
We want to exactly be done with delivering the load from the incoming projectile right before it hits the ground.

285
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:14,000
But why scribble when you've got the software to design and test the concept?

286
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:21,000
We're using SolidWorks software here, which I've had for a while, but I've never really been able to use it to its full potential.

287
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:27,000
The beauty of something like this is that it really allows me to push the limits of the material and the design.

288
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:33,000
Because it doesn't matter if the design breaks on the computer, I'll just pull up another one, change it a little bit and try again.

289
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:39,000
And that way by the time I get around to building the real thing, I already know it's going to work.

290
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:44,000
Jamie's decided to build his bench in two parts, both hinged on a pivot.

291
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:47,000
Where's that put us as far as our yield strength?

292
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:55,000
The big picture here is to maximize the energy transfer from the falling man to the girl and to keep the seesaw intact.

293
00:16:55,000 --> 00:17:01,000
So I started thinking about what do I know that is really massively strong and lightweight.

294
00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:05,000
And so what I came up with was a construction crane like this toy here.

295
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:11,000
Instead of relying on something to not bend, they put a cable across the top of it.

296
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:15,000
So the load that's being experienced is on that cable.

297
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:21,000
And instead of a bending force on this sparse structure here, you've got a compressive load.

298
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:24,000
It's hard to see here, but the load is this way.

299
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:31,000
And so you end up with something that's able to build whole buildings and yet there's really not a whole lot there.

300
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:39,000
While Jamie thinks big, Adam goes small scale to get some idea of what to look for when they try this again at full force.

301
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:44,000
Building a toy teeter totter is easy peasy.

302
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:46,000
I don't know, kind of wholesome, you know.

303
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:52,000
This is our little girl, as creepy as she looks.

304
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,000
And this is our skydiver as much as it looks like a round ball.

305
00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:02,000
They are the equivalent weight relationship of our real skydiver and our real girl, about three and a half to one.

306
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:08,000
What I want to investigate with this is what happens to her when the skydiver hits the seesaw.

307
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:14,000
The seesaw doesn't break. Where does she go? What is her trajectory and what can I predict about her trajectory?

308
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:20,000
So Adam starts test number one from ten feet up on the scissor lift.

309
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:24,000
A plum line indicates the perfect drop point and it's bombs away.

310
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:27,000
Three, two, one.

311
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:40,000
Oh God, that's one of the best high speed shots ever.

312
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:46,000
I dropped the weight from about ten feet up and she smacked into that lamp at a pretty high speed,

313
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:51,000
which means she's going higher in the air than the lead weight is starting from.

314
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,000
That tells me there might really be something to this.

315
00:18:55,000 --> 00:19:00,000
So Adam installs a scale that measures the drop height at six inch intervals.

316
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,000
Alright, thirty inches.

317
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:04,000
He starts out from just thirty inches.

318
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:07,000
Three, two, one.

319
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:11,000
Dropped from thirty six inches.

320
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:16,000
For such a simple test, this one is giving me tons of data and good data.

321
00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:17,000
Forty two inches.

322
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:22,000
Number one, I think she might actually make it to the roof of that seven-story building or higher.

323
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:24,000
There we go with forty eight.

324
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:26,000
Secondly, I'm noticing her flight characteristics.

325
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:29,000
She is pretty much staying in line with this seesaw.

326
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:30,000
Wow!

327
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:34,000
Either landing where she took off from or landing around the center of the seesaw.

328
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:39,000
That gives me a really good bead on where we can all safely be when we're watching this thing happen in full scale.

329
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:46,000
When I dropped the weight from fifty four inches, she flew eight feet into the air.

330
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:48,000
Wow.

331
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:52,000
I'm looking at this, I think she might actually make it to the top of the seven-story building.

332
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:58,000
But a full scale girl won't hit those dizzy heights without Jamie's super seesaw.

333
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:04,000
They've got the parts and now they have to put it together.

334
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:09,000
Obviously we like the complex engineering challenges.

335
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:11,000
Lead balloon.

336
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:16,000
Shredded plane.

337
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:17,000
Yeah!

338
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:19,000
Ping-pong rescue.

339
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,000
Ten, four, three, two, one!

340
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:28,000
This is the first time we've ever resorted to computer simulations for calculating the huge amounts of energy we're dealing with.

341
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:35,000
When that skydiver hits our seesaw, it has to transfer all of its energy, all of his energy to the girl.

342
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:41,000
And everything that we've done thus far says that this will do that.

343
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:44,000
I'll believe it when I see it.

344
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:50,000
This is one of two trusses that will make the seesaw and even without welds on it, it's really strong.

345
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:56,000
We're not only using a different material, in this case we're using chromoly steel.

346
00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:00,000
We're using a different configuration of it as well.

347
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:07,000
The way these joints kind of grab all of the other members, it's going to be really, really sturdy once we get it all welded.

348
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:14,000
This thing that looks like a maximum security birdhouse is in fact the vital fulcrum.

349
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:20,000
The trusses like this are going to be welded on to here and this is where the pivoting happens.

350
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:25,000
It's got to be really strong because there's going to be one heck of a lot of weight hitting it.

351
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:32,000
And if this engineering marvel breaks, the girl, just like the myth, ain't going nowhere.

352
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,000
Coming up, Torian Grant take the plunge to fine tune the physics.

353
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:46,000
And later, this improbable myth comes to a shattering and surprising conclusion.

354
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,000
Don't try anything you see on the show at home.

355
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,000
Wear what you call experts.

356
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:10,000
In just two days, belief in the myth of a skydiver hitting a seesaw and shooting a small girl 70 feet high has waned.

357
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,000
We're going to have to rethink this thing.

358
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:15,000
And waxed.

359
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:16,000
Wow!

360
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:26,000
Jamie's super seesaw looks promising, but now they need to find a way to accelerate a full weight dummy to terminal velocity and hit the target.

361
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:31,000
Okay, so now we know the speed the buster has to fall to hit the seesaw, just over 120 miles an hour.

362
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:33,000
Yeah, but there's a problem.

363
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:35,000
We need at least 600 feet to get to that speed.

364
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:36,000
600 feet?

365
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,000
You know how hard it's going to be to hit a target dropping buster from 600 feet?

366
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:46,000
Yeah, so we need to figure out a way the buster can fall faster than gravity at a reasonable distance like 100 feet and still hit the X.

367
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:47,000
What about bungee?

368
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:48,000
Bungee?

369
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:54,000
Yeah, we do like a reverse bungee where we attach buster to one end of the bungee, we anchor the other end, then we stretch him up and release him.

370
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,000
It hits the target every time.

371
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:02,000
Fresh from skydiving school, Grant and Tori head for the hills to try another extreme sport.

372
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:06,000
Again, it's all in the name of scary science.

373
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:11,000
You know, we got close on board a slingshot, but we've never actually used bungee in an experiment.

374
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:16,000
Yeah, I mean it's a good idea, but is it going to get our skydiver up to 122 miles an hour?

375
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:19,000
Well, you know, there's only one way to find out.

376
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:20,000
We're going to have to jump on.

377
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:21,000
Yep.

378
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,000
It's that reverse thrust they're looking for.

379
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:27,000
One, two, yoo!

380
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,000
Tori's the first to take the plunge.

381
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,000
Don't worry, buddy, it'll all be over in a few minutes.

382
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,000
I know, that's what I'm worried about.

383
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:35,000
Ugh.

384
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:39,000
Remember, go big. You cannot dive too hard or too far.

385
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:40,000
Oh man.

386
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:41,000
Go big.

387
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,000
Oh man.

388
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,000
Or here's a thought, just go.

389
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,000
Ah! Ah!

390
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:58,000
It sure looks like Tori rebounded faster than he fell.

391
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,000
At least he had fun.

392
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,000
Everything in your mind is saying, don't do it.

393
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:12,000
And then once you get over that fear and do it,

394
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:16,000
then there's like the sensation of all your guts going into your mouth.

395
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,000
And then you hit the bottom and you bounce up

396
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,000
and you do it a couple more times.

397
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,000
So it's like, it continues.

398
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:28,000
And while Tori's concerned with the state of his guts,

399
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:32,000
Kari's about to be up to her elbows in someone else's.

400
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,000
This is going to be my falling parachutist.

401
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:39,000
Now to make him, we need something that's going to emulate the human body,

402
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:44,000
which is approximately 75% water to 25% solid materials.

403
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,000
Now to do that, we're going to use an alginate.

404
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:50,000
This is used for life casting, taking impressions when you go to the dentist's office.

405
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,000
We're going to fill this wetsuit with the wet alginate

406
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:58,000
and hopefully we are going to have the perfect analogue for the human body to fall on our seesaw.

407
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:02,000
In short, he'll go splat just like a real man.

408
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:07,000
And Kari's figured the average athletic weight at 171 pounds.

409
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,000
Kind of feels like guts.

410
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,000
And yes, I do know what guts feel like. I've been on the show for years.

411
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:18,000
It's Jamie's fate to carry the load, assuming he can lift it.

412
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:19,000
Oh, geez.

413
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,000
They finally do make the scales.

414
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:35,000
Jamie's already weighed in at 180 pounds, so they'll subtract his bulk from the total.

415
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:36,000
So how much?

416
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:38,000
It's good. It looks like we only need about another 20 pounds.

417
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,000
And I haven't done the feet or the hands yet.

418
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:43,000
So I think we're right in the zone for the body.

419
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,000
Okay, so that was only about what?

420
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,000
One-fifty.

421
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:47,000
Really?

422
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:48,000
Yeah.

423
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:49,000
I'm getting a hold.

424
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,000
Back on the bungee bridge, it's Grant's turn.

425
00:25:58,000 --> 00:25:59,000
For science.

426
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:09,000
This is the best day to ever.

427
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:12,000
Let's hope so.

428
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:16,000
Both Grant and Tori are trying to feel the pulling power of the bungee.

429
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,000
Well, you know, I think this is really going to work.

430
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,000
I could really feel the stretch and the acceleration on the way back up.

431
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,000
Yeah, but we're definitely going to have to tweak this in order to get our skydiver to go 122 miles an hour.

432
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:29,000
Casey.

433
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:30,000
How are you?

434
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:35,000
The man who might be able to help them out is Casey Dale from bungee.com.

435
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:36,000
Rubber bands are rubber bands.

436
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,000
We can stretch rubber band for you.

437
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:44,000
We'll need his best and biggest rubber band, which Casey calls a mongo.

438
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:54,000
Mongo means a really big cord, New Zealand style cord, so that it has more stretch and rapid acceleration.

439
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:58,000
So you think you'll be able to get it up to 122 miles an hour?

440
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,000
Put enough rubber in, stretch it hard enough, absolutely.

441
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:07,000
Meantime, Carrie struggles to dress her man.

442
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,000
Then add some personality.

443
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,000
There you go. Now you have a head.

444
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,000
Better to see me with.

445
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:25,000
Put a parachute on you and drop you out of the sky to your death.

446
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,000
With the frame finished and the parts fitting perfectly.

447
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:32,000
That's perfect.

448
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,000
Awesome.

449
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:37,000
Adam and Jamie rigged the high strength Spectra rope.

450
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:43,000
Working just like the cables on a crane, this should give us a compression rather than a bending load.

451
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,000
Well, that's just another seesaw.

452
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,000
That's what it is.

453
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:57,000
In theory, the rope is even stronger than the spars, but no one knows for sure if this amazing structure can withstand the sudden impact.

454
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:03,000
And then there's Ariel. Will she survive? Will she even fly?

455
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:10,000
The big questions and a dozen little ones will all be answered tomorrow.

456
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:14,000
Next up, the boys go heavy metal in a shipyard.

457
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,000
And early testing goes totally air shaking.

458
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:20,000
Oh my God.

459
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,000
Did you see what happened?

460
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:36,000
All five myth busters have joined forces to make or break a bizarre urban legend.

461
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:42,000
The young girl who supposedly survived a seven story flight from the end of a seesaw.

462
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:46,000
No surprise then that the test menu is a spectacle in itself.

463
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:48,000
Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

464
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:55,000
Now the myth states that once the skydiver hit the seesaw, the little girl flew 70 feet up, seven stories and landed safely on top of a building.

465
00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:02,000
Now this works out perfectly for us, this location, because the dry dock is 30 feet deep and that scaffolding right there is 40 feet tall.

466
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:06,000
So when we place it on the side of the dry dock, that is our seven story building.

467
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,000
It's our point of reference.

468
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:14,000
Adam, Tori and Grant have arrived a day early to make things right for the big test.

469
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:24,000
She might be wondering what these giant plates are.

470
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:31,000
Well, we can't weld to the dry dock, we can't drill into it, we basically can't modify the dry dock in any way.

471
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:38,000
But we still need something solid to attach our bungee cord to and to attach the seesaw to.

472
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,000
So our solution? Trench plates.

473
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:47,000
Each one of these weighs 7,500 pounds and we have two of them for a total of 15,000 pounds.

474
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,000
I think that ought to be solid enough.

475
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:58,000
While Tori welds the plates together, Adam nervously considers his next step.

476
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:03,000
I want to make sure that my skydiver hits the seesaw square on.

477
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:08,000
So I'm going to run two guide wires that will guide him all the way down to hit the seesaw precisely.

478
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:15,000
I've got a weld in their bottom points, then I've got to walk out to the end of the crane and rig the spreader bar.

479
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,000
That should be fun.

480
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,000
It's understood that Adam has a strange idea of fun.

481
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:27,000
The job itself is simple enough to secure a sling over the very end of the boom.

482
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:32,000
Well, that's it, we're fully rigged up here, I'm going to go down below.

483
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:37,000
Grant goes up to attach the spreader bar to the sling.

484
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:41,000
Getting this right is probably the most crucial part of the setup.

485
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,000
Okie doke, I'm going to let it go.

486
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,000
It looks good.

487
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:55,000
Down in the dock, Tori welds two sturdy steel taps to the trench plates.

488
00:30:56,000 --> 00:31:01,000
Adam fastens the wires, then fantasizes about being the fall guy.

489
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:05,000
So, right now I want you to picture me as an experimental skydiver.

490
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:13,000
I'm a wetsuit filled with dental alginate and I am being reversely shot into the ground using these guide wires to guide me,

491
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:19,000
falling all the way into bang our seesaw and hopefully sending our little girl flying.

492
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,000
Casey, you made it.

493
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:26,000
With impeccable timing, Casey arrives with a bag full of bungee.

494
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,000
Whoa! Look at the size of it!

495
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,000
Oh my God, that's crazy!

496
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:37,000
So the first thing that goes in the big hook is this, it's a dynamometer.

497
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,000
This tells us exactly how much force there is in the system.

498
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,000
The dynamometer gets hooked up to the quick release.

499
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,000
Now, all we need is a body,

500
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:52,000
but they're not prepared to risk Carrie's alginate man on a dry run.

501
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:57,000
So, for our calibration test, we're going to use this, which is an inner tube filled with sand.

502
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:05,000
And the idea is that it weighs 171 pounds, which is exactly the same as our human analog will be.

503
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:09,000
You know you have a good myth when you're excited about the calibration tests.

504
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:14,000
Even in testing, this is the myth that keeps on giving.

505
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,000
Alright, we're at 2240 pounds of force. We're ready to test this.

506
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,000
Okay, this is calibration test number one.

507
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,000
Here we go.

508
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:26,000
Three, two, one!

509
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,000
Did you see what happened?

510
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,000
Yeah, we just ripped the inner tube!

511
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:43,000
It kind of worked. I mean, if this had stayed together, it would have been perfect.

512
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:46,000
Yeah, I mean, the bungee cord worked.

513
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,000
Our guide wires worked.

514
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,000
The inner tube is going to need a little bit of revision.

515
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:56,000
Yeah, because this is not an accurate test. This is 171 pounds.

516
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,000
The best possible solution is simple and cheap.

517
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:04,000
I think what we're going to do is take a duffel bag, wrap it with ties,

518
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:09,000
and hopefully that will keep the weight together so we can get an accurate test.

519
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:14,000
So, slight change of plan. Instead of an inner tube, we're sending our luggage.

520
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,000
Pull on safety.

521
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:22,000
If the bag holds together, they'll get a precise fix on the speed of the falling skydiver.

522
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:27,000
And they're hoping that's very close to 122 miles per hour.

523
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,000
Calibration test number two.

524
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,000
In three, two, one!

525
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:39,000
I had a feeling that was going to happen.

526
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,000
It just ripped through the straps.

527
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,000
Alright, we're going to have to redo it.

528
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:48,000
So we just did our second test. It was time the straps on the bag broke.

529
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,000
So the bag didn't even get pulled down. It just fell down.

530
00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:02,000
Worse still, the bungee cord took a serious hit on the carpet-covered trench plates.

531
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,000
This doesn't look good.

532
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,000
Hey, Casey?

533
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:11,000
Casey has the spare parts to build one more cord, which they'd all like to save for tomorrow.

534
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:18,000
Still, they can't proceed without dialing in the speed, so it's well worth a parting shot.

535
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:22,000
This last calibration test just has to work.

536
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:25,000
Go, hit it.

537
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:26,000
Here we go!

538
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,000
It worked! Hit the target!

539
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,000
The bungee didn't break!

540
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:37,000
That's perfect!

541
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:39,000
Now we just got to see what our speed was.

542
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:47,000
To calculate the speed, they carefully check the high-speed replay, frame by frame.

543
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:52,000
And there's reason to be hopeful. The bungee held and the bag fell unimpeded.

544
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,000
Grant does the math, and Tori makes the big announcement.

545
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,000
This bungee cord is done. We can't use it again.

546
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:01,000
We're going to have to build a new one when we do the final test.

547
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,000
But the good news is, is we got a calibration for the speed of our following skydiver.

548
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:10,000
And it's exactly 122 miles an hour. We are gold.

549
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,000
Still to come.

550
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,000
Oh my god, this is better than Christmas!

551
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:21,000
This whole crazy myth gets launched sky high, and inevitably comes crashing down.

552
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:22,000
What?!

553
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:23,000
What?!

554
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,000
Grant, Tori, come on down!

555
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:38,000
It's the last day of testing the Seasaw Saga. And Jamie's ready to show off his baby.

556
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,000
Three, two, one, ta-da!

557
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:43,000
Wow!

558
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,000
Oh my god, this is better than Christmas!

559
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,000
I've never seen a Seasaw like this before.

560
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:57,000
I was expecting a giant piece of steel. This is beautiful. It's elegant. It's gorgeous.

561
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:02,000
Carrie's diver dad makes a rock star entrance to the dry dock.

562
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,000
That's assuming the rock star is Keith Richards.

563
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:12,000
And Jamie's found a way to improve the energy transfer by patting the impact zone with foam.

564
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:18,000
So what we're doing is slowing that delivery of energy down because it's got to crush the energy down.

565
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:25,000
I crushed this before it gets to the Seasaw. This is kind of like the difference between a sledgehammer and a rubber hammer.

566
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,000
Tori delivers the victim.

567
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,000
You're going to be fine. Your dad busters a million times.

568
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:38,000
And Grant pulls out the shock watches. The stick on patches measure the force of impact.

569
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:46,000
If the red one triggers, she's dead. If the green one triggers, she's injured and alive, but she's not walking away.

570
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:56,000
So they're finally all set to see if a plummeting man landing perfectly on the end of a Seasaw could really launch a 6-year-old 70 feet high.

571
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:05,000
There's no question in my mind that there's enough energy in the parachutist as he comes down to throw that little girl way, way up in the air.

572
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:11,000
And there's a host of problems that we could have. The dummy could just split apart and only deliver part of his energy.

573
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:20,000
Things could not line up properly. The rig could break. And not to mention, she has to go up pretty much straight up in the air for this to work.

574
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:25,000
Seasaw Saga. Full-size test. Grant, take it away.

575
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:30,000
Here we go. In three, two, one.

576
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:33,000
Woo!

577
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:43,000
Did you expect that? It didn't go up. It shot across the dry dock.

578
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,000
Wow.

579
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:55,000
That was cool. The skydiver hit the Seasaw. The Seasaw stayed together and the little girl got washed over 55 feet in the air. That's above the dry dock.

580
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:59,000
Oh my God!

581
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:02,000
See, the skydiver exploded.

582
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,000
One word for this. Splat.

583
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,000
Looks like he landed butt first.

584
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:15,000
His legs missed the Seasaw, but his upper torso hit it. It's probably about 60, 70% of his mass contacted it.

585
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:23,000
And even that amount was enough to catapult her 5 stories up in the air and 70 feet laterally.

586
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:28,000
Grant checks the shock watches and the news is grim.

587
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:33,000
Oh, red shock watch is tripped.

588
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:41,000
Partly surprising when the doll was flung high and wide into solid concrete, but this testing needs more finessing.

589
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:50,000
At this point it looks like our understanding of the physics is correct. The only problem that we have is our aim of the skydiver at the target.

590
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:59,000
Little more than half the weight hit the Seasaw. With Dan's demise, the inner tube gets a recall. Hopefully it will hold together.

591
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:08,000
Now it is the same exact weight as the average man, but this time we're hoping that we'll impart all of its energy under the Seasaw and fling the girl the 7 stories that we talked about in the myth.

592
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:13,000
Here we go! In 3, 2, 1!

593
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:18,000
Oh!

594
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,000
Didn't see that one coming.

595
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,000
Yeah, dang it.

596
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,000
Very painful.

597
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,000
She got clothesline.

598
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:37,000
Good deployment of the sandbag. Hit the Seasaw, the girl went up, but you got tangled in the wires.

599
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:46,000
She's traveling on a much greater arc than I saw in any of my scale tests, and I think that's because our Seasaw's play is much greater than the playground Seasaw.

600
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:57,000
Well, you can see the red grease going up her shoe. That's right, where she actually hit the guide wire. So we're going to have to reset and do this one again.

601
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:06,000
In the best mythbusters tradition, the fast setting winter sun means this next attempt is absolutely our last one. It's now or never.

602
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,000
Let's go up.

603
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:13,000
They can only cross their fingers and hope that this time the girl misses the guide wire.

604
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:17,000
Here we go! 3, 2, 1!

605
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,000
Well, Jamie said it would work.

606
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:37,000
The skydiver simulate did hit 122 miles per hour.

607
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:47,000
And despite the colossal sideways arc, little aerial flew way higher than anyone dared to hope.

608
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:54,000
She flies about level with our spreader bar, and that's 130 feet.

609
00:40:55,000 --> 00:41:03,000
That's 13 stories, and that was with an angle like this. If we got her to go straight up, she would have cleared 200 easy.

610
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:10,000
This myth sounded totally improbable from the get-go, but Jamie and Adam kept the faith.

611
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:18,000
The fact is, normally when we're testing myths that have to do with broad guesses about physics, they're usually grossly overestimating what's possible.

612
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:23,000
And in this case, we've come across a myth where the physics are grossly underestimated.

613
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:37,000
If you had an impossibly strong seesaw, if you had a parachutist that didn't just go splat when he hit it, you'd be capable of launching a little girl up at least 13 stories in the air.

614
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:42,000
So, how do we call it? Well, sad to say it's busted.

615
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:52,000
Jamie built the best possible seesaw and almost doubled the seven-story flight. But that little girl would be just as dead as the skydiver.

616
00:41:53,000 --> 00:42:04,000
So I've reviewed the high-speed footage, and I've calculated that the little girl was subjected to 42G, which means, well, she was likely injured just from her launch from the seesaw.

617
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:07,000
And her landing, that's a whole other thing.

618
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:16,000
Oh my god, that's how far she went? Nice work.

619
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,000
One of seven stories I think she delivers.

620
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:19,000
High fives.

621
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,000
I think our work here is done.

622
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,000
Oh, you remember the thing we did with the thing?

623
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:39,000
Yup.

624
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:40,000
What are you guys doing?

625
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:44,000
Remember that thing we did with the thing, but it never actually made it to the show?

626
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:45,000
Uh-huh.

627
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,000
Well, it's on the web.

628
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:52,000
That's right. If you want to check it out, go to discovery.com.slash-mythbusters.com and see what we're talking about.

629
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,000
You two need help.

630
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:55,000
That's what my psychiatrist said.

631
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:57,000
Help, play it again.