"Do not try any of the experiments you are about to see at home." "You heard him." "Don't do it." "NARRATOR:" "On this episode of "Mythbusters"..." "WALBORN:" "Ready, hit it." "NARRATOR:" "...gear up your ears..." "That kind of wakes you up in the morning." "NARRATOR:" "And button up your bulletproof vest..." "Protecting for two, you see." "NARRATOR:" "...because there's guns galore and big audio dynamite." "First, Adam and Jamie ask, "Can a sonic boom break glass?"" "I call that a bull's-eye." "NARRATOR:" "Then, Kari, Grant, and Tory fire up a film fable to find out if you can bend bullets." "So duck and cover, because this is going to be fast, loud, and lethal." "WALBORN:" "Come on." "Stick with me, Adam." "You got it." "You got it." "Come on." "Stay with us." "NARRATOR:" "Who are the Mythbusters?" "Adam Savage..." "I'm ready to go, man!" "NARRATOR:" "...and Jamie Hyneman." "It's like a wet T-shirt contest." "NARRATOR:" "Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience." "Wow!" "NARRATOR:" "Joining them..." "Kari Byron..." "Pbht!" " NARRATOR:" "Grant Imahara..." " [Sobbing] Why?" "!" "...and Tory Belleci." "Let's go!" "NARRATOR:" "They don't just tell the myths." "They put them to the test." "All right, I hear this one's a loud one." " What's the story?" " Sonic boom." " What's that?" " Sonic boom!" "What about a sonic boom?" "!" "Sonic boom breaks glass!" "Well, sure, a sonic boom can break glass." "The fans are saying that any sonic boom breaks any glass... windows, glasses, you name it." "[Laughs] That sounds like fun." "Well, the best part is that we get to ride in a jet." "You want to lay down a bet?" "Where are you going?" "Dude!" "When something this noisy goes faster than the speed of sound, the sonic boom created is a powerful and visceral experience." "The question is, can any old sonic boom really break glass, and for answers, the guys are going to fly with the world-famous Blue Angels." "Dude, come on back." "I was just kidding." "I want to hear all about these jets." "It's not just about the jets." "The myth is that any sonic boom can break glass, and you and I both know that bullets go supersonic sometimes." "You're suggesting we start with guns and glass." "Exactly." "I love it!" "And then we go for the jets." "Please, can I be the one that flies in the jet?" "Why should you get to fly in the jet?" "'Cause I'm gonna be funnier on camera in the jet." "Well, okay, but you need to log some training hours first, because we need to know that you can handle it before you go supersonic." "Oh, this is so cool!" "NARRATOR:" "But before the guys bring out the big guns to test the bullets, it's off to the Naval Air Facility at El Centro, California, the winter home of the Blue Angels." "They've kindly allowed Adam to join one of their subsonic training sessions, so that he can qualify for the supersonic test flights later on." "Adam is gonna be going up in a Boeing F/A-18 Hornet." "The "F/A" stands for "Fighter Attack."" "And their twin engines put out a total of 32,000 pounds of thrust which propels them at up to about 1,400 miles per hour or just under twice the speed of sound." "NARRATOR:" "But first, Adam is getting a brief briefing and a crash course in combating G-forces." "SWANSON:" "A negative "G" is like a roller coaster." "Lightheadedness." "The stomach feels like it's coming up." "[Laughing] Holy crap!" "SWANSON:" "To combat that, all we're gonna do is take long, deep breaths, and that helps with the nausea." "[Gagging]" "Positive G's are the ones that make it feel like there's an elephant sitting on your chest." "Hick!" "Hick!" "When he's in the maneuver, it's gonna force all the blood from your upper body down into your toes, and you want to combat that." "The way that we do that is the anti-G strain maneuver, and it's gonna look something like this." "Hick-ahh!" "Hick-ahh!" "Hick-ahh!" "SWANSON:" "If you start seeing yourself go into G-lock, you'll start to see this gray tunnel." "And it's gonna look like it'll start closing in on you, closing in on you." "Hick!" "If you don't fight it, it'll go from gray to black, and you'll pass out." "NARRATOR:" "Undeterred by that possibility..." "Let's go fly." "NARRATOR:" "Our excited little jet-fighter rookie..." "Right here, these are the yellow and black handle." "That's the ejection handle." "Hands off at all times." "NARRATOR:" "...gets all set and seated, ready for his training ride." "WALBORN:" "Let me just call up Tower here and see if we can go take off." "Okay." "NARRATOR:" "Adam, in Blue Angel Number 7, is ready for the experience of a lifetime." "WALBORN:" "Here comes middle power." "It's about 20 knots." "There they go." "NARRATOR:" "And they call this a job." " WALBORN:" "There's 80 knots. 100." " [Chuckles]" "There we go." "It's 240." "230." "280." "Ready to fly?" " I am." " Ready, hit it." "Oh-ho!" "WALBORN:" "And we're flying." "[Laughing] Holy crap!" "At one point, they were going along the runway, and then all of a sudden, they were going straight up." "WALBORN:" "Going up through 2,000 feet." "Wow." "ADAM:" "We've had 6 years of doing incredible, life-changing kind of crazy crap on this show, and that takes the cake." "That's the best thing I've ever done." "WALBORN:" "Just a way to see the world upside down as we cruise on out." "Wow." "Oh, that's intense." "It is absolutely like every special-effects film you've ever seen." "It's that cool." "Wow, this is beautiful." "[Laughs]" "[Making whooshing sounds]" "Okay, so, what's with the hardware?" "We have a new movie myth that has "Mythbusters" written all over it." "And since this movie has come out, we have been inundated with requests to do it." "In fact, it is the most requested myth of the year." "You're talking about the movie "Wanted," right?" "Exactly." "And in that movie, a secret society of assassins shares the ability to curve a bullet." "Just with a little bit of a flick of the gun, you can curve the bullet around an obstacle and hit your target." "[Lmitates bullet ricocheting]" "This should be fun." "Or really dangerous." "[Makes whooshing sound]" "Do I get a play gun, too?" "When we're done." "[Makes whooshing sound]" "NARRATOR:" "When your target is hidden behind a side of pork and Angelina Jolie, what's a secret assassin to do?" "Shoot the target." "NARRATOR:" "Well, supposedly, with a swing of the arm and a flick of the wrist, in obligatory action-movie slow motion, the bullet curves around the obstacle, saving your bacon." "Okay, so, how do you want to test this?" "I say we just go for it." "Pshh!" "GRANT:" "Exactly." "In the movie, James McAvoy was able to curve a bullet after only a few tries with minimal training, which makes us perfectly qualified." "Okay, but let's say on the off chance that none of us are fifth-generation secret superhuman assassins, maybe we could break it down, look at the rifling, aerodynamics, and, I don't know, throw in a robot for good measure." "Okay, you got a point there." "What's wrong?" "You guys feeling ballistically challenged?" "I say we just let our cold-blooded assassin instincts take over!" "Okay." "How about you hand me the gun and then we'll go with that plan?" "How about you get your own gun?" " Just give me the gun." " Nope." "All right." "NARRATOR:" "And the location for our gun-toting trio to potentially bend their bullets is deep in the heart of..." "wine country?" "[Pig squeals]" "Napa Valley, Northern California." "GRANT:" "So, to start out testing our curving-bullet myth, we're actually gonna try it ourselves." "But because this involves swinging a live gun around..." "[Cow moos] ...we need a lot of open space." "KARI:" "Okay." "So, for our first test, we just need a control... well, target practice to make sure we can all hit the target." "Yeah, 'cause there's no point curving a bullet" " if we can't hit our target." " Yeah." "Sounds good." "KARI:" "And it looks like I'm the first target." "[Growls]" "NARRATOR:" "So our trio of would-be assassins select their weapons, line up, and let loose." "Let her have it, Kari." "[Gunshot]" "Look at that." "Four in the black!" "[Gunshots]" "Love that smell." "TORY:" "It looks like we're all hitting the target." "You guys ready to start curving bullets?" " KARI:" "Sure!" " Let's do it." "NARRATOR:" "And first up is Grant..." "[Grunts]" "NARRATOR:" "Who volunteered to put in a few extra hours studying Angelina Jolie's technique." "I think you must have been practicing in the mirror." "You've got some moves." "It's kind of like an aerobics workout." "[Heart beating]" "[Breathing deeply]" "[Gunshot]" "Ahh!" "Ha ha!" "[Gunshots]" "James McAvoy didn't get it on his first one." "NARRATOR:" "But neither Grant Imahara..." "Ahh!" "...nor Tory Belleci..." "[Gunshots] ...got it at all." "GRANT:" "It's really interesting." "It happens very fast." "The characters in the movie have this ability to speed up their heartbeat, and that makes everything else slow down." "Apparently, I don't have that ability." "It just goes, "Pa-poom!" And then it's gone." "NARRATOR:" "Next up is Kari and co." "As I am six months pregnant," "I will be wearing a bulletproof vest." "Protecting for two, you see." "As I suspected, I don't have superhuman strength, abilities, or shooting capabilities." "What are you gonna do?" "I'm just a regular girl." "NARRATOR:" "With none of our gung-ho gunslingers coming close to the target, never mind curving a bullet, it's quite clear that imitating the movie just isn't going to cut it." " WALBORN:" "Ready to go flying?" " I am." "Ready, hit it." "NARRATOR:" "To find out if the energy from a sonic boom can break glass..." "[Laughing] Holy crap!" "NARRATOR:" "Adam and Jamie have recruited the Blue Angels..." "WALBORN:" "Take a deep breath." "Ready, hit it." "NARRATOR:" "The U.S. Navy's flight demonstration squadron, specifically pilot Lieutenant Ben Walborn..." "WALBORN:" "Going on up to 5 G's." "We got 5 G's. 51/2." "NARRATOR:" "Is taking Adam for a training flight in preparation for supersonic testing." "ADAM:" "Wow, I saw a little of the gray tunnel there." "WALBORN:" "Yeah." "Depending on what the jet's doing," "Adam is either gonna be weightless or he's gonna be experiencing about 71/2 G's..." "Hick!" "...which means that he'll feel like he weighs 1,400 pounds." "Hick!" "Kind of like having an elephant on his chest." "Now, if he follows his anti-blackout techniques that he was taught about in our safety briefing, he shouldn't pass out." "Hick!" "WALBORN:" "Come on." "Stick with me, Adam." "You got it." "You got it." "Come on." "Stay with us." "Stay with us." "We got it." "Come back." " You with me?" " I'm with you." "I passed out there for just a second." "But given his past history, I think he's gonna spew." "ADAM:" "I'm starting to feel a little nauseous." "I think I may throw up." " WALBORN:" "You got the bags?" " I do." "Hold on." "[Coughs]" "NARRATOR:" "Incredibly, despite blowing chunks on several occasions, the experience still blew Adam's mind." "ADAM:" "There were two kind of mind-blowing things about that experience." "One is that while I am using every ounce of strength and energy I have just to keep from passing out," "Lieutenant Walborn is going through everything that I'm going through, except that he's piloting a $50 million plane, going through these motions, and talking to me all the time." "The second one is that, even though I passed out, even though I threw up, even though my dignity, or lack thereof, is on display for television, it didn't detract from the experience at all." "Two." "We have fired a whole crapload of rockets on the show, but we've never ridden in one." "[Chuckles]" "WALBORN:" "Ready, hit it." "Oh-ho!" "WALBORN:" "And we're flying." "[Laughing] Holy crap." "That thing is fast." "It is pretty fast." "We did that vertical takeoff." "We were going about 30,000 feet per minute climb rate up there." "Did you break the speed of sound?" " No, I did not." " But you can, right?" "You guys break the sound barrier all the time." "Yes, but never at an air show." "The F.A.A. Prohibits flying supersonic over populated areas." "In order to fly supersonic, we'll go out to restricted zones, or at least 30 miles off the shore." "JAMIE:" "Are you ready to barf at the speed of sound?" "All right." "Where do we stand?" "Well, you blew chunks." "You passed out a bunch of times." "You're cleared to fly." "[Laughs] So I get to fly supersonic now?" "Well, hold on a second, there, cowboy." "Remember, we were gonna start with sonic booms from guns first." "Oh, right!" "I've got a tableful of glassware." "I've got a .50-caliber rifle." "We're good to go." "That sounds like a perfect day." "Let's do it." "NARRATOR:" "So, while Adam gets busy with the corridor of glassware..." "[Chuckles]" "NARRATOR:" "Hyneman is handling the hardware." "JAMIE:" "If you're not aware, the .50-caliber is the big gun." "There's not really anything that a civilian can get ahold of that's any bigger or more powerful than this." "It kind of puts a smile on your face if you're a gun enthusiast." "NARRATOR:" "And the peaceful pastoral location that's about to be interrupted by the sound of violence is a familiar scene to the Mythbusters team." "ADAM:" "This bucolic setting is, in fact, the Chabot Gun Range and we've shot many bullet-related myths here, including "Sniper Scope"" "and a couple of "What is Bulletproof?" episodes." "Today we want to find out if one of these can break one of these." "But not by hitting it, merely by passing by." "Yes, today is all about the sonic boom." "JAMIE:" "Let's talk sonic booms." "The first thing you need to know is that sound travels at 761 miles per hour at sea level." "Now, this bullet goes supersonic when it's fired, and it goes about 1,984 miles per hour." "And what is happening is that there's a shock wave created by kind of a conical wall of sound trailing behind the bullet as it's going through the air, and when that wall of sound actually crosses a person," "the person experiences that as a sonic boom." "You can think of this kind of like a boat on the water, and the boat is leaving a wake behind it, and you're like a dinghy kind of floating nearby, and when the wake passes across you, you start to react to it." "[Vomits]" "Now, what we're doing here is seeing what glass will do when that pressure wave goes through the glass." "Will it break it?" "We're gonna find out." "NARRATOR:" "It's a filmic fable that has the Mythbuster message boards in a spin." "Can you really bend it like Brangelina?" "Well, so far, despite the team's best efforts there's been no sign of a bullet-bending shot." "TORY:" "That's looking pretty straight to me." "It doesn't look like it's curving at all." "Swing and a miss." "NARRATOR:" "Fact is, most of their shots went nowhere near the target." "A little early on the draw." "NARRATOR:" "So to test this properly, they need to match the movie characters' superhuman speed, strength, and accuracy." "So, needless to say, we failed miserably at trying to curve the bullet ourselves." "But you know what?" "We're only human." "And the characters in "Wanted" have superhuman abilities." "So that's why we're resurrecting this." "It's a sword-swinging robot..." "Oh!" "GRANT:" "Became a bat-swinging robot..." "That's the hit!" "GRANT:" "And became a hat-swinging robot and it's about to become a bullet-curving robot." "It can swing its arm at superhuman speeds, and what's more, it can fire the gun at precisely the moment we want it to." "Take off some of the rust, change it around, and we're good to go." "KARI:" "Going down." "We need a completely controlled environment to test our crazy gunslinging rig, so we've come down to the South San Francisco Police Department." "They have a firing range, and they're gonna let us use it." "NARRATOR:" "And while Grant gets ready for action," "Tory and Kari prepare to get the results down on paper." "We need to find out whether or not these bullets are curving, but in order to do that, we need to be able to track the path of our bullets." "So, we've set up five frames of paper down the gun range, 8 feet apart." "That way, when the gun goes off, the bullet will punch a hole in each one of those sheets of paper." "Science is a party." "Unh!" "Unh!" "Unh!" "Now, if the bullets are flying straight, those holes should all line up, and we should be able to see that by pointing a laser pointer down the hole." "Hey, it works!" "Now, if those holes are not lining up, then we're curving bullets." "GRANT:" "So, the first test up is at regular human speed." "I know we've already done this test ourselves, which qualifies as human speed." "But the robot is capable of perfect execution, and that's what we need to do is take out any differences in our timing or our aim and do it perfectly." "Normally here on "Mythbusters," we're pretty safety-conscious, but on this experiment in particular, because we've got a gun going a full 360 degrees around, we have an extra set of precautions." "GRANT:" "Exhaust valves..." " open, open, open." " Check." "And because Tory and I are gonna be in the danger zone here, we're wearing full bulletproof riot gear." "Turn elbow to home." "Pin is in." "Trigger cylinder is out." "Are we ready to load the gun?" " Almost." " Check." "10 more steps." "Damn!" "Secondly, I've got a 25-point checklist to make sure that we can load and discharge the weapon safely." " Okay." " Your fly's down." "Check." "That ought to cover it." "Here we go." "We are loading the gun." "All right, we are loaded and hot." "Okay, pull the elbow pin." " TORY:" "Pin pulled." " Pressurizing the shoulder." "This reminds me of Nam." " Ready?" " Ready!" "Safety pin pulled." "Let's go." "GRANT:" "Get out of here!" "KARI:" "Okay, this is going to be human speed." "GRANT:" "Here we go." " 3, 2, 1." " [Click]" "[Gunshot]" "KARI:" "I can see two and three." "NARRATOR:" "Remember, if the bullet did curve..." "We got all five frames." "That was a good test." "NARRATOR:" "The holes in the five sheets of paper, the physical evidence of the bullet's trajectory," " won't line up." " KARI:" "Okay, here's the laser." "KARI:" "And..." "lined with the hole." "Can you see it all the way?" "TORY: [Lisping] Science is so unforgiving." " GRANT: [Chuckles]" " The bullet didn't curve." "We can see the laser down at this end." "[Gunshot]" "KARI:" "Now, for us, this confirms that human speed is not going to curve a bullet." "We did it ourselves." "We tried it with the robot." "Now it's time to ramp it up and see if superhuman strength is gonna curve it." "NARRATOR:" "Can a sonic boom from a bullet break glass?" "Adam and Jamie are about to find out." "[British accent] Right, little bullet, here is your motivation, here's how it's gonna work." "We're gonna put you down the barrel of this and then Jamie..." "I know how you like Jamie... is gonna pull the trigger." "[Normal voice] Sonic boom from 71/2 inches!" "[British accent] At that point, I would really appreciate it if you used all your gases expanding in that direction to start traveling down this way towards the glass." "Right, about 1,984 miles per hour." "In 3..." "I'd like you then to travel down the middle part of the glass, past the glass, past the glassware, the light bulbs, the wine bottle." "...2..." "And then if you feel like it, if the physics are right and you're in the mood and you'd like to break some glass with your sonic boom, you go right ahead." "...1." "[Gunshot]" "[Normal voice] That is a hell of a thud." "NARRATOR:" "A thud Adam and Jamie could feel through the air but a thud for which the glassware didn't care." "ADAM:" "It all looks pristine." "JAMIE:" "It does." "ADAM:" "Dude, you can see the bullet." "That's awesome." "The shock wave would be following behind it." "If we were gonna see anything, it would probably be starting to happen now." "JAMIE:" "I don't see any movement." "I can't believe from the thud I feel from firing the weapon that I don't see a single..." "anything." "I think we got to push way in." " JAMIE:" "I do, too." " Let's say 4 inches apart?" "2 inches each from the bullet?" " JAMIE:" "Sounds good." " All right." "Based on the fact that we didn't see any reaction before," "I don't think it's gonna break." "2 inches from center." "In 3, 2, 1." "[Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "As the high speed illustrates, there wasn't even the slightest tremor." "I-I-I don't see anything." "I got to say if a bullet passed that close to me," "I'd be scared to death, and those glasses..." "it's like nothing is happening." "NARRATOR:" "Which is enough evidence to convince our hirsute Hoosier." "At this point, I don't think the bullet is gonna break the glass." "NARRATOR:" "And with the glass lined up just half an inch from the center line, contact with the banana-sized .50-caliber bullet is a distinct possibility." "JAMIE: 3... 2... 1." "[Gunshot]" "I don't think that was a shock wave." "Me neither." "NARRATOR:" "Me too." "That looked to be a direct hit on the rig." "ADAM:" "See that right there?" "That's not a sonic boom." "That's a bullet hit." "That's where the bullet contacted the frame, started shattering glass, and the glass itself, traveling with the bullet all the way down the corridor, tearing crap up as it went." "JAMIE:" "Yeah, the rest of this is from the shrapnel," " probably, huh?" " ADAM:" "Yeah." " Where do we stand?" " All right, well, at no distance where the bullet passed by the glass did we get any movement from the glass." "Check." "At this point, we don't have any evidence that a sonic boom, at least one coming off a bullet, has any significant effect on any thickness of glass." "Check." "King to pawn four." "[Scoffs]" "Check." "NARRATOR:" "So, this part of the myth, a sonic boom from a bullet breaking glass, is, like Adam's glass corridor, well and truly busted." "Adam and Jamie now know that the sonic shock wave from a passing bullet, if they even create one, doesn't break glass." "So, really, their best bet is the jet." "And back at the Naval Air Facility," "Adam is all set to break the sound barrier for science." "Strap in." "It's time to go supersonic." "NARRATOR:" "Meanwhile, 55 miles away in Yuma, Arizona..." "[Chuckles]" "Oh, there's a hissing sound." "[Chuckles] Uh-oh." "NARRATOR:" "...Jamie is preparing a glass menagerie for Adam's supersonic flybys." "JAMIE:" "If you happen to have a supersonic jet, you can't just go flying around anywhere you want creating sonic boom." "You got to come to a place like this... the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, which is one of the few places you can legally do that." "That's why we're here." "Mythbusters/Blue Angels test site." "Plenty of space..." "[Bird screeches] ...some nice shrubbery." "Probably quite a few rattlers, but we can build a house here." "That ought to do it." "And there's a glass window in it." "NARRATOR:" "Yeah, it's all real glass." "And what we need now is a rundown of the test protocol." "Okay, buddy, here's the deal." "Pay attention." "We're here to see if we can break some glass with a sonic boom, so Adam is up in the sky in an F/A-18 Hornet." "He's coming in at supersonic speeds." "He's gonna get lower and lower with each pass." "NARRATOR:" "With Adam just moments away, the final piece of the prep puzzle can be put into place for the first test run." "JAMIE:" "We need to make sure we get a direct flyover from the jets." "So, how do you do that?" "Well, they're gonna put out some smoke so that we can see where they're at." "WALBORN:" "We'll go ahead and put our smoke on." "Smoke on." "Ah, there they are." "And then we're gonna signal them with a mirror so they know right where to fly the jet." "7, P.A.O. Ready for 8,000-foot pass." "ADAM:" "We just got word from Jamie's team that they are ready and waiting for us, and we are just about to bypass them at faster than the speed of sound at 8,000 feet." "Here we go." "NARRATOR:" "That's the cue for Lieutenant Walborn to do the jet-fighter equivalent of putting his foot down." "WALBORN:" "There goes the afterburners." "Mach .85." "Mach .9." "Mach 1." "Mach 1.03." "NARRATOR:" "And because Mach 1 is the speed of sound," "Adam Savage is now supersonic." "ADAM:" "Wow, this feels cool." "Mach 1.06." "[Jet engine roars]" "NARRATOR:" "So as they pass directly overhead, they've got the speed they need." "But with the test site a speck in the distance, the impact on the ground is distinctly underwhelming." " Was that supersonic?" " WOMAN:" "Yeah." "That was no boom." "That was nothing." "And we're slowing down." "Back down to Mach .98." "Oh, this is so cool." "I've heard them louder than that going over my house." "NARRATOR:" "Kari, Grant, and Tory have discovered that if you simply mimic the movie "Wanted" you won't bend bullets." "They've even built a deadly accurate gunslinging robot, given it the exact same sidearm action as the myth and still failed to get anything but a straight shooter." "The bullet didn't curve." "NARRATOR:" "So, next up, they're raising the bar and ramping up the robot." "GRANT:" "So, the great thing about this test is that the characters are superhuman, not supernatural." "They're not vampires." "They don't use magic." "They don't have telekinetic powers to curve the bullet." "All it is is superhuman speed and strength, and that we can do in abundance." "We've calibrated the rig to twice what a normal human can do." "TORY:" "Loading the gun with a live round." "GRANT:" "Twice as fast." "We'll see how that goes." "Ready!" "KARI:" "All right, live round at superhuman speed." " GRANT:" "You ready?" " Let's get it on." "Here we go, you guys." "In 3, 2, 1!" "[Gunshot]" "Ha ha!" "Center shot." "NARRATOR:" "And the paper trail once again neatly illustrates the path of the projectile." "It's made it through the second frame." "Yeah." " Third." " Yes!" "Fourth." "And the fifth frame." "This is a good test." "Let's check the alignment." "KARI:" "Okay." "Do you see the laser?" "Oh." "I see the laser." "NARRATOR:" "Despite flicking the robotic arm around at superhuman speeds, when the bullet leaves the barrel, it leaves in a straight line." "And that leaves this part of the story done and busted." "GRANT:" "I know what you're thinking." "You're sitting at home thinking," ""The Mythbusters gave up too soon!" "It was only one shot!"" "But look, here's the reality." "This robot is capable of swinging its arm harder and faster than a major league hitter." "Maybe if I saw 3/4 of an inch, 1/2 an inch, maybe even a 1/4 of an inch, it would be worth continuing on." "But you know what?" "We're not seeing any deviation at all." "It's time to move on." "Mach 1.06." "NARRATOR:" "So far, Supersonic Savage has completed one 8,000-feet sonic-boom flyby." "JAMIE:" "Well, that was 8,000 feet, and it was 1.06 mach." "That was nothing." "NARRATOR:" "But they're not done yet." "This time, they're ramping it up by bringing it down." "ADAM:" "We are banking into position." "We're getting to 2,000 feet elevation in order to do another supersonic pass." "JAMIE:" "Sonic boom from 2,000 feet." "Well, that's a lot closer than 8,000, so... it might do it." "ADAM:" "All right, we are accelerating." "Mach 1." "Mach 1.03." "We are headed straight for them." "2,000 feet at Mach 1.07." "NARRATOR:" "It seems so peaceful..." "Adam flying overhead at the speed of sound," " and then..." " [Boom]" "Wow." "That was something." "I call that a bull's-eye." "[Laughing]" "NARRATOR:" "It's a classic sonic boom and a classic illustration of the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound." "You see the supersonic jet fly by in silence." "Then the sound, moving at 761 miles per hour..." "[Boom] ...catches up." "But the big question is, did it do any actual damage?" "Nothing." "It's all intact." "NARRATOR:" "So it's a question of, "How low can you legally go?"" "Like some kind of supersonic limbo dance, the guys bring it down one more notch." "We're commencing the 500-foot run." "We're accelerating now." "We got to see some broken glass!" "Okay, he just came over the horizon." "500 feet." "ADAM:" "Mach 1.03." "Oh, we are headed straight for them." "This doesn't feel like 500 feet." "It feels like 50 feet." "Mach 1.05." "Oh, I can totally see them right there." "This one is for the money." "Oh, no!" "[Chuckles]" "[Boom]" "Wow!" "[Chuckles]" "NARRATOR:" "That was loud." "[Boom]" "Really loud." "[Boom]" "But despite the powerful ground-level experience..." "[Boom]" "[Boom] ...the myth that a sonic boom equals shattered glass is looking busted." "Not one single item of glassware was even splintered." "No broken glass." "Not looking good at this point." "NARRATOR:" "Not at this geographical point." "But a few hundred feet away at base camp, the team make an interesting discovery." " Hey, Pete." " CARNICELLI:" "Hi, Jamie." "What do you got?" "Well, what happened was, on the 500-foot pass, the sonic boom ripped through this trailer, opened up all the cabinets, and came out right here on the skylight and blew it completely off." "Yep, just like a pop top on a soda can. [Chuckles]" "NARRATOR:" "Kari, Grant, and Tory have ramped up their robot to superhuman speeds, but the sidearm action used to bend bullets in the movie just doesn't work in real life." "Nothing!" "This is more fake film physics." "Whoa, whoa, we can't go busting this myth yet." "They did have a cool collection of customized guns." "And special engraved bullets." "Okay, I see where you're going with this." "Maybe it's not just the sidearm flick that gives us the curving bullet." "Exactly." "Maybe it's a function of altering the bullets and guns themselves that's giving the bullets that curve." "It seems logical..." "you change the surface of the bullet or its balance, that could affect the trajectory." " But what about the gun?" " The thing that makes the bullet go straight is the rifling in the barrel." "Yeah, the helical grooves cause the bullet to go into a self-stabilizing spiral." "So, I guess the next step..." "take the rifling out of the gun, alter the bullets, and see if we get a curve." "NARRATOR:" "So, in their final bid to bend the bullet," "Kari takes on the task of smoothing out the gun barrel's rifling." "That should do it." "We have a smooth barrel." "NARRATOR:" "Meanwhile, Tory has been attempting to upset the bullet's finely balanced aerodynamics." "The three sets of bullets are done." "The first set I've changed just the aerodynamics of the bullet, and the way I've done that is I've taken a hacksaw and cut grooves along one side of the bullet." "The other set, what I've done is I've changed the weight, and the way I've done this is I've drilled out half of the bullet, and then I filled it with car-body filler, so that way it's unbalanced." "Finally, the third set of bullets, I've incorporated both where I've drilled out half the bullet." "This way, it is no longer balanced, and it's no longer aerodynamic." "NARRATOR:" "And with the ammo altered and their gun barrel smooth..." "I'm gonna make some arrests." "NARRATOR:" "It's back to the South San Francisco" " Police Department." " Calling all car..." " Can I get my bike back?" " Sorry." "[Siren walls]" "NARRATOR:" "Inside the firing range, in order to capture the all-important high-speed camera shots, the team is reverting to a stationary shooting position." "And first up, the team fires off a few shots with a regular gun and the altered bullets." "But on each occasion, there was no bend to the bullet's flight path." "GRANT:" "But I think when we switch to the barrel that has no rifling, all bets are gonna be off, and that bullet is gonna do whatever it wants to." "NARRATOR:" "And from the very first test with a grooved bullet..." "Okay, grooved bullet, derifled gun." "[Gunshot]" "NARRATOR:" "It's clear how important rifling is." "Whoa!" "Look at how wild that bullet went without the rifling." "NARRATOR:" "Yep, one look at the first pane of paper, and you can see the bullet must have gone through sideways." " That was incredible." " What the heck happened?" "NARRATOR:" "But despite the head-over-heels flight, it still traced a straight line through the air." "Look at that." "It's a straight path." "NARRATOR:" "And no matter how the bullet is altered... grooved... unbalanced... and a combination of both... the result is the same every time." " TORY:" "Whoa!" " KARI:" "Whoa!" "TORY:" "Look at how unstable the bullets are now that there's no rifling." "Yeah, it's, like, going, "Pshew!"" "TORY:" "But still, it's not curving." " GRANT:" "No." " NARRATOR:" "It's clear that the massive forward momentum of a speeding bullet..." "No." "Straight path." "NARRATOR:" "...simply overrides any minor adjustments to its aerodynamics or balance." "So, it's looking like no matter what we do, physics are working against us." "We cannot curve a bullet." "It doesn't matter if the barrel's rifled or not." "Doesn't matter if the bullets are altered or not." "So, this one's busted." " Busted." " Busted." "[Boom]" "JAMIE:" "Wow!" "[Chuckles]" "ADAM:" "So, our 500-foot pass did not break any glass." "Nothing." "ADAM:" "What's gonna happen now is," "I'm gonna get in a chase plane and follow Ben as he begins to do lower and lower passes over our test site, also increasing his angle of attack to focus the sonic boom right on ground zero, on our house." "I swear, we are incredibly close." "NARRATOR:" "So, without a single sign of the mythical glass-shattering result, the team is ramping it up with some fancy flying." "This time we're coming in nose down at about 5 degrees." "We think this might focus the boom a little bit more and give us what we want." "There they are." "[Boom]" "Man, that's a rush." "NARRATOR:" "Before Jamie can get in and check the results," "Ben blasts by..." "[Boom] ...twice more in quick succession." "[Boom]" "And this time, damage is definitely done." "JAMIE:" "No window." "I can see it from here." "NARRATOR:" "A broken window, but not exactly as per the myth." "Oh, no." "It blew the window out of its hole, but it didn't break it." "NARRATOR:" "The three rapid-fire, low-altitude, supersonic flybys have clearly had an effect." "Ah, the plot thickens." "That broke the door." "NARRATOR:" "But the jury is still out on whether it will specifically break glass." "It didn't break any of the glass." "It knocked it down, though." "NARRATOR:" "And that has got Jamie thinking." "JAMIE:" "A sonic boom is just a pressure wave." "We've created a lot of pressure waves on Mythbusters." "We've put out fires with them." "We've broken wine glasses." "But on the other hand, we've tried to make people poop and we've tried to blow up cars with them." "Those didn't work too well." "Sometimes they just don't behave the way you expect... from reflections, from harmonics, from all sorts of subtle details that you only figure out after a lot of experimentation." "NARRATOR:" "And that further experimentation is a set of five 200-foot passes, which is as low as we can legally go, lower than anything seen outside the training zone." "These things are coming in so low, we're not gonna see them until they're on top of us." "WALBORN:" "Blowers ready now." "[Engine roars]" "[Boom]" "JAMIE:" "Wow." "That's intense." "WALBORN:" "Coming in tight." "[Boom]" " Ready, hit it." " [Boom]" "[Speaks indistinctly]" "[Boom]" "MAN:" "T-minus 330." "[Boom]" "Unh!" "That kind of wakes you up in the morning." "[Laughing]" "JAMIE:" "Well, that right there were five sonic booms hitting that house and the car and the glassware, at 200 feet." "I got to go check it out." "What the heck?" "Nothing!" "NARRATOR:" "Like the glassware, the car escaped unscathed." "JAMIE:" "Well, it didn't break it, but it knocked off the rearview mirror." "NARRATOR:" "Well, almost." "But over at the house, it's a whole different story." "[Boom]" "[Boom]" "That's what I'm talking about." "That is one broken window." "It not only broke it but it just, like, shattered every little bit to smithereens." "So, it can happen." "[Chuckles]" " Oh, no!" " [Boom]" "NARRATOR:" "So, it is possible to break glass with a sonic boom but not any old glass from any old sonic boom." "The glassware is intact, and it was the warping of the window frame that led to the only breakage." "And let's face it... that only happened after the low-altitude passes that just don't happen anywhere but in these restricted training zones." "JAMIE:" "So, Tyson, I've been meaning to ask you." "We're out here in the dessert." "You look like you just came from the laundry with that thing." "What do you do if you spill your lunch on it?" "DUNKELBERGER:" "I don't." "JAMIE:" "Oh." "Okay." "Well, I'm looking at a broken piece of glass here, man." "Does that mean the fans are vindicated?" "That's the only thing that the sonic boom broke." "What about all the other glass that didn't break?" "There were car windows." "There was a table full of this kind of stuff." "None of it broke." "Well, I mean, the myth clearly states that any sonic boom will break any glass, and, apparently, that didn't happen." "And we had to fly the jet in at ridiculously low levels to make this break." "Well, then, I think the answer is pretty clear." " It's busted." " Totally busted."