Original subtitles

Do not try what you're about to see at home.

We're what you call experts.

[ Clang! ] Ow!

Narrator: On this episode of "mythbusters"...

* we've been driving on the freeway *

narrator: Adam and Jamie go green for science...

I'm actually getting kind of excited about this.

And kick their engineering expertise

into full throttle...

When i was a kid, i would've killed for one of these.

Were you ever a kid? No.

As they pit bike against car for the ultimate eco-challenge.

We're just getting started, too.

Gonna be awesome!

Narrator: Meanwhile...

[ Laughter ]

kari, Tory, and Grant...

Come here often?

Raid the arsenal for an explosive filmic fable...

You're John malkovich. You don't get any hair.

Narrator: And unleash the first rpg

in mythbusters history...

[ Laughs ] Whoa.

Narrator: To find out if a bullet

can beat a rocket-propelled grenade.

[ Laughs ]

Mackerel!

Narrator: Who are the mythbusters?

Adam savage...

Working on these machines is great for my skin!

And Jamie hyneman. Are you done screwing around?

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

Together with kari Byron...

Fire! Tory belleci...

You ready to get your head cut off?

And Grant imahara.

Save yourselves.

They don't just tell the myths.

They put them to the test.

Captions by vitac... www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

Jamie, you're a fan of motorcycles, right?

Ever since i was 16. Really?

They've had motorcycles that long?

Here we go. Okay.

There is a trend, apparently, going on where people,

including fans of "mythbusters,"

are trading in their cars and driving motorcycles instead

because they believe

that's the more environmentally friendly choice.

And what's their logic?

Their logic is simply that because motorcycles

are generally more fuel-efficient than cars,

they burn less gas,

and thus they must be better for the environment.

Sounds sensible.

But there are people that say not only is that not true,

they claim that motorcycles pollute far worse than cars.

Well, that sounds like something we need to investigate.

I totally agree.

There's no doubt both cars and bikes produce gases

that can be harmful to the environment.

And supposedly being smaller and using less fuel

means that bikes produce less.

So, is there fuel to this fire?

Are motorcycles a greener machine than cars?

Well, clearly, this involves

getting a bunch of different cars and motorcycles,

testing them, and comparing the results, right?

Right, but which ones?

I mean, there's tens of thousands

of makes and models of each.

What do we choose?

Well, why don't we get some of the most popular models

of the last three decades?

A representative sample, right...

Some cars and bikes from the '80s,

the '90s, and the naughties.

The naughties are 2000 till 2010.

[ Clicks tongue ]

That sounds like a perfect way to do this.

Well, let's get our hands dirty.

Okay. Wa-cha!

Whoa. Where are we?

This will be our base of operations.

Let's walk you through the particulars.

[ Tires screech ]

[ Engines revving ]

These are our test cars.

We've got a car from the '80s, a car from the '90s,

and a car from the naughties.

We've also got some motorcycles.

We've got one from the '80s...

One from the '90s...

And one from the naughties.

We've chosen them based on their popularity

within their respective decades.

There is literally nothing fancy

about the route we'll be driving today...

No tricky maneuvers, no extreme road conditions.

It is simply a 30-minute drive spread out over 20 miles

and split 75% freeway driving and 25% city driving.

So, how are we gonna measure our emissions?

Well, that's where these guys come in.

They're from the clean-air technologies division

of global mrv,

and they've brought with them something called the pems,

or portable emissions measuring system.

And basically, you know when you take your car in to get it smogged?

Well, that's what the pems does, except it's more accurate,

and it's real world,

because you put it in the vehicle,

you stick a probe in the exhaust,

you hook it up to the engine,

and you drive the car or the motorcycle around for a while.

And voilà... instant data.

The numbers we get should be precise enough

to allow us to call whether the motorcycles

or the cars are better for the environment.

Narrator: And with six vehicles, that's a lot of driving.

I'm ready. All right, let's do this.

All right, here we go.

Narrator: But thanks to the wonders of non-linear editing...

Okay, this is bike versus car.

The 30-minute test for the '80s...

'80s pollution test in 3...

'90s... 2...

and naughties... 1... Go!

Can take place simultaneously.

And we're off.

* dun, dun-dun, dun-dun-dun *

Adam: A left turn takes us into the neighborhood,

where we can do some city driving.

Jamie's keeping up nicely.

Everyone's going roughly the same speed.

Test is going perfect.

Narrator: Everything is going perfectly.

And Adam's running commentary gives us a very special insight.

Adam: [ Burps ]

Ooh, i just burped

and tasted a little bit of my lunch... enchiladas.

Narrator: As the guys gather their data...

Adam: I must say, i never quite understood the dogs-in-sweaters thing.

I mean, they're cute as blazes, but i like petting my dog.

I don't like petting a sweater.

[ Laughing ] I'm really glad we had this time alone

that we can talk.

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: After a few minutes of city driving,

the freeway portion of the testing begins.

* i am driving for scientific testing *

* on the freeway in northern California *

* I'm followed by Jamie and following a police car *

* to gather the pollution data

narrator: Eventually, after 30 minutes at each vehicle,

the testing comes to a close,

and Adam finishes how he began.

* we've been driving on the freeway *

* testing our emissions

* in motorcycles

* and the ca-a-a-a-a-a-rs

* and the ca-a-a-a-a-a-rs

* today

[ cheers and applause ]

Thank you. Thank you very much.

After a full day of driving, we've done three runs

with six vehicles

and collected 24 separate points of data.

Home sweet home.

There we go.

So, that's it? Yeah.

It's time to head back to the shop and see what it means.

Next up, the guys are seeing red with an explosive myth.

[ Explosion ]

You're gonna love this.

Why?

Because after 180 or so episodes,

we've finally found an excuse to use a rocket launcher.

Yes! What are we testing?

This one comes from the movie "red"...

"retired and extremely dangerous."

Okay, here's the scene. There's a standoff.

Our hero has a revolver,

and our villain has a rocket-propelled grenade.

They both fire, and the bullet and the rpg meet in midair.

The bullet triggers the rpg, causing a huge explosion,

killing the villain,

and the hero walks away unscathed.

Narrator: So, that's two rocket-propelled grenade myths

for the price of one.

Will the bullet trigger the warhead?

And when it explodes,

would it really be "bye-bye, rocketeer,"

with only the bad gal going up in flames?

So, where to start?

All right, two myths, one scene.

Now, the first one is,

can you set off a round from an rpg using a bullet?

Well, to begin with, i think we need to match

both the gun and the rocket launcher from the movie.

Then we point them at each other and fire.

Simple, right?

Okay, besides being a logistical nightmare,

you can't shoot a rocket launcher in California.

But i know a place we can.

Narrator: Luckily, the team have friends in high-explosive places,

so they head to the mythbusters rocketeering h.Q.

Kari: To test the myth of our rpg handgun face-off,

we've come to one of our favorites places.

New Mexico tech sort of feels like a second home.

Why do we love this place so much?

Well, they have 40 square miles of testing facility

where they have gun ranges and bomb sites.

How can it get any better than that?

[ Imitates bazooka firing ]

Narrator: Well, by throwing in a license to fire these.

Tory: So, for this myth, we have three questions we need to ask.

One, how does an rpg work?

Which end does the rocket go in?

Two, what happens when an rpg and a bullet meet midair?

And three, when they do meet and the explosion goes off,

who survives?

Narrator: And question one... How does it work?...

Calls for a little rpg 101 with John myrkle.

John, we've fired a lot of guns on the show but never an rpg.

Could you fill me in on the basic components?

Okay, this is the launcher. It's pretty simple.

It's basically a bunch of metal tubes welded together.

And this is the rocket.

So, when it fires, it kicks the rpg out of the tube,

and partway to the target,

the rocket motor lights and makes it accelerate.

And what actually causes the fuse to arm?

Setback "g" forces.

When it comes out of the tube,

it goes from zero to 140 meters per second

in about 6 milliseconds.

So it's experiencing a lot of g's.

It's time for the practical demo of exactly how the rpg works.

All right, you guys realize

this is the first time in the history of "mythbusters"

that we've ever shot an rpg.

Kari: All right, this is rpg versus trailer

just to see what it does.

[ Laughs ]

Grant: In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

[ Laughter ]

What?! It's gone.

The trailer's completely gone.

That was so fast!

That was so much more energetic than i thought.

That didn't look anything like you see in the movies!

That was, like, bang, bang!

[ Laughs ] Let's check the wreckage.

Yeah, right.

Narrator: Outside, they find a trail of rpg devastation,

or should that be an rpg-devastated trailer?

Wow, that is a scary amount of destructive force right there.

Well, now we know how an rpg works.

Yep, they couldn't have asked for a better demonstration.

Tory: After looking at the high speed of the trailer,

we noticed one thing.

After the trailer exploded, we saw hot molten copper

continue on and actually burn holes

into the steel armor behind it.

The reason being is because an rpg

isn't like a typical grenade

that has an explosive charge that throws shrapnel.

It actually has an inverted copper cone

that is surrounded by a shaped charge,

and when that hits the target, the charge goes off

and actually pushes that copper out

into a hot molten slug of copper that burns through steel.

Narrator: So, not only is the rpg explosion

nothing like the movie,

it also throws forward a molten copper surprise,

which doesn't bode well for the hero.

Now we need to see what happens when a bullet meets an rpg.

The hard part is gonna be getting those two to match up.

Let's get to work. That was incredible.

Narrator: After the break...

So, it's kind of like soap on a rope

but a little bit more dangerous.

Yeah, a lot more power.

It's the rpg versus bullet smackdown.

Narrator: The mythbusters have been behind the wheel

and in the saddle

to find out which is greener, the car or the bike.

And, finally, the data is in.

So, after some swift consulting, equating, and calculating,

the guys have the emissions verdict.

Jamie: After running the numbers

and looking at the outputs of pollutant gases

from all the vehicles

and getting some expert analysis from professor Kent Johnson

of the university of California riverside,

we came up with some surprising results.

First up in the mythbusters

motorcycle versus car data crunch is fuel efficiency.

Across all of the vehicles, the results were consistent.

Motorcycles use less fuel than cars.

Which makes sense.

Motorcycles are lighter than cars,

and thus they require less energy to push themselves forward.

And you'd think that using less fuel

would make them better for the environment.

But you'd be wrong.

From an emissions standpoint,

let's take a look at the most populous of the gases

that these vehicles put out... Carbon dioxide.

It's nasty.

It's a greenhouse gas,

so it contributes to global warming.

And it makes up 90% of the emissions

of an internal combustion engine.

And, because it's a direct by-product of burning fuel,

motorcycles, which burn less fuel,

consistently produce less carbon dioxide than cars.

But the other pollutant gases we measured

tell a totally different story.

Hydrocarbons, for example, cause smog,

cancer, asthma, emphysema, and a host of other nasties,

and motorcycles produce far more than cars.

Oxides of nitrogen... Responsible for smog,

lung ailments, and acid rain.

Motorcycles produced up to 3,200% more than cars.

And carbon monoxide is an air pollutant

and poisonous for animals to breathe.

Well, motorcycles produce up to 8,000% more than cars.

In summary, while we found that motorcycles

were more fuel-efficient than cars

and put out a lot less carbon dioxide,

the amount of polluting gases they put out

was vastly worse.

This myth is about someone that traded the car for a motorcycle

because they believed it was better for the environment.

And they were wrong. At best, it's a wash.

Motorcycles are just as bad for the environment as cars.

At worst, they're far worse.

Narrator: Yep, the data doesn't lie.

The cars are cleaner,

but bikes and mythbusters go way back,

and they're not done yet.

By combining hyneman ingenuity with savage savvy,

they're taking this myth to the Max.

Now, that is a cool-looking design.

Can they put bikes back on track

by creating the ultimate clean, green machine?

It's starting to look sexy.

Ktg are taking on an rpg.

And it's got nothing to do with role playing.

In this movie myth, the villain is taken out

by their own rocket-propelled grenade

all because of a well-timed bullet.

So far, we've seen what happens when an rpg hits a trailer,

and it turns out, it's not looking so good for the myth,

because once an rpg detonates,

it fires a stream of molten copper

through and beyond the target.

But you know what? This is "mythbusters." We can't give up here.

What we want to look at next

is what happens when a bullet meets an rpg.

Can it even trigger?

Narrator: Indeed, but getting a tiny bullet

to hit the warhead on the head is tricky.

Luckily, by joining forces with nmt,

they've come up with a solution.

All right, Leonard, you built this system. Tell me a little bit about it.

Well, this was actually designed, Tory,

from friends of ours up in huntsville, Alabama...

Artec... and they call it rocket on a rope.

So, it's kind of like soap on a rope

but a little bit more dangerous.

Yeah, a lot more power. [ Laughs ]

More powerful and more deadly. And here's why.

Now, obviously, this isn't a real rpg.

This is an inert one, 'cause we're not crazy.

Right here is our launcher. It's a steel tube.

The rpg will go into that.

Right here is where our firing pin will be.

Once that starts, pressure will build up inside this pipe,

and it'll push our rocket on the sled

down these lines towards our gun.

That quick change in acceleration arms the warhead,

and it travels down this line,

which is tensioned at 3,000 pounds.

So it can handle the rocket

and keep it on a level and straight path.

When that sustainer motor kicks in,

that's when we really start cooking.

Now, at some point along the line,

the rpg will actually hit a trip wire

that will activate our gun.

Now, i know this doesn't look like the gun in the movie,

but it does exactly the same thing.

And the bullet, which is the same caliber as in the movie,

will come firing out of here, right into the tip of the rpg.

Then we'll finally find out what happens when bullet meets rpg.

Narrator: With their ingenious rocket on a rope rig primed

and the gun loaded,

it's time to hunker in the bunker.

[ Door creaks ]

Okay, rpg versus bullet. Go for launch.

All right, here we go. In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Whoa!

Do you think maybe the bullet disabled it?

I don't know. High speed... Let's go look at the high speed.

Check the high speed.

Narrator: It all happened in the blink of an eye.

But it does seem like there was a trip up with the trip wire.

Tory: For our first test,

we were not able to hit the rpg with the bullet,

and there was a couple of reasons for that.

One, the lines were not tight enough.

So, as the rocket came down the line,

it was bouncing around.

By the time it got to the bullet,

it was actually out of line with the barrel of the gun.

Not only that, the bullet didn't even fire.

The trigger was not sensitive enough.

So, we've made some adjustments.

We've put more tension on the line.

That way, that'll keep that rocket stable,

and we have a more sensitive trigger.

So that way, by the time the rocket gets to the barrel,

the gun will fire.

And then, finally, we'll find out,

will an rpg get set off by a bullet?

Narrator: With the rig adjusted and a new warhead loaded,

it's back underground for round two.

Kari: I think it's time for another shot.

All right, here we go.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Wow. It definitely exploded.

I don't know if it was because of the bullet.

Hard to tell. Let's look at the high speed.

Oh, this is crazy!

Narrator: Crazy with a capital "c."

And it looks like they've gotten bullet versus rpg success.

Hits the trip wire.

It works!

[ Laughter ]

Tory: The bullet can set off an rpg!

Dude, that's amazing!

All right, so that part of the myth is confirmed.

Amazing and confirmed

and all down to an incredible rig.

Now, to nail down who actually lives and who dies in this myth,

we've got to do a few things.

We've got to find out how fast the bullet travels,

how fast the rpg travels,

and then we can figure out

where, in the 80 feet between the good guy and the bad guy,

they would meet.

So that means we need to get some bullets,

we need to get some rpgs, and we can go shootin'.

So, for the oxides of nitrogen, the hydrocarbons,

and the carbon monoxide,

the bikes put out more pollution than the cars,

but, somehow, i don't feel like you're done with this story.

No, I'm not, and here's why.

Ultimately, the amount of pollution that comes out of a bike

has to be related to the amount of fuel that goes into it.

And while it's true that bikes are lighter

and smaller than cars and so they use less fuel,

they'd use even less if they more aerodynamic.

Right. The fact is that bikes

are totally aerodynamically inefficient.

That upright rider presents a huge block to the wind.

They're not designed like cars to slip through the air.

Exactly, and so what I'm wondering is,

if we made a bike super streamlined,

could we reduce its fuel usage to such a degree

that it would actually beat

the fuel-pollution standards of cars?

You want to build a super-streamlined bike

and put it to the test.

I do. I love it. Let's do it.

Narrator: The plan is to create

an aerodynamically efficient bike.

And for that, the mythbusters fire up the old gray cells

for one heck of a brainstorm.

So, we're making one of those

super aerodynamically efficient.

How do we do it?

Well, it's got to be some kind of a shell.

Mm-hmm.

And it's got to be lightweight

and pretty much got to cover the whole thing.

In this concept cyclone...

Something like a teardrop with the bike in the middle.

A whole load of ideas are thrown up in the air.

I was thinking more like a tuna,

where the tip can be a little bit more pointed.

It's kind of like an igloo.

What if this thing was like a big sphere?

And just like lightning...

One idea strikes them as the best way to go.

If these are steel...

Like ribs. Yeah.

Secure it, and then you cut out an access-port-sized door,

these would be covered by heat-shrink.

And have not just a design but a plan, too.

Now, that is a cool-looking design.

I've never seen anything like that before.

If we did this and we did this in a tubular steel,

it's a really nice divide-and-conquer design.

I love it. Let's do it.

Okay.

Adam: After a tremendous amount of back and forth,

we have a plan, and that is it.

With a little bit of bent tube steel,

some heat-shrink plastic, and a couple of dozen hours,

i think we'll have our bike fairing.

Narrator: Later...

Tory: Whoa!

That was intense.

Narrator: But first...

[ Imitating engine revving ]

Adam: * I'm followed by Jamie and following a police car *

* to gather the pollution data

narrator: It seems that cars have the edge on bikes

when it comes to being green.

Adam: We found that motorcycles were more fuel-efficient than cars

and put out a lot less carbon dioxide.

The amount of polluting gases they put out was vastly worse.

Narrator: So, now the guys are creating a super-streamlined motorcycle

to increase its fuel efficiency and minimize its emissions.

Jamie: Now, a lot of bikes normally have fairings on them,

which are plastic cowlings that cover the front portion of the bike

to reduce wind resistance.

In our case, we're gonna get considerably more involved,

however, and we're gonna build a fairing

that covers the entire bike, its passenger included.

A little more crouchy than that.

Narrator: This device will cocoon the cyclist inside,

making it more aerodynamic, greener,

and eco-competition for the car.

This is our stripped-down bike,

and very soon, a bunch of steel like this

is gonna make the frame for our fairing.

And the frame is gonna be comprised of two parts.

One... this large, overarching circle,

which Jamie is going to ring-roll,

and a bunch of horizontal ellipses,

which I'm going to hand-bend with a conduit bender.

Narrator: Getting the steel frame perfect is crucial,

as the design literally hangs off of it.

I love bending metal.

Narrator: Soon, what starts out

as a series of bent steel rods...

[ Imitates smacking ]

is welded together to become one half of the fairing.

[ Grunts ]

Wow.

That is a pretty thing.

It is, isn't it?

[ Both laugh ]

I don't care what it's for. It's just plain lovely.

Jamie: Yeah, let's make a whole bunch of them.

A little more measuring, welding, and bending,

and they've got what looks like a giant hamster ball.

Adam: That is frickin' sexy, man.

More surface area, but it's smoother.

Oh, yeah, totally.

Narrator: With the sphere complete,

they cut out the part where the bike will go.

[ Imitating engine revving ]

I like it.

When i was a kid, i would've killed for one of these.

Were you ever a kid? No.

Narrator: And since the bike fits snugly,

it's time for the comet to get its tail.

[ Laughs ]

How about that?

That is friggin' awesome.

It's starting to look sexy.

It's kind of different, you know?

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: A perfect teardrop,

but there's just one more thing

to complete their aerodynamic design.

So, this frame that we've spent all this time building

isn't what makes this bike more aerodynamic.

It's actually the skin we put on top of this frame

that will do all of that work, and this is our skin.

It is a roughly clear plastic that shrinks when you heat it.

So, we're going to put it all over this frame.

Then we're going to heat it with a blow torch

until it's drum-tight.

And that ought to make this

the aerodynamic, fuel-efficient bike of our dreams.

Narrator: An aerodynamic bike of their dreams

and all by reducing a little thing called drag.

Adam: We know that the motorcycle is less aerodynamic than a car,

and that is because of drag.

The best way to visualize drag is to take a look at this clip.

You see the ink floating behind the vehicle?

That is a low-pressure bubble of air

that the vehicle has to drag around

because it's not properly aerodynamic.

Our thinking is that the smooth front

and sharp tail of our fairing

will allow the motorcycle to slice through the air,

spending less of its energy driving and saving fuel.

If we're able to save enough fuel,

the emissions might finally dip below that of the cars.

That's looking great, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. It's cooling down right now.

That's when it shrinks, huh? Yeah.

And in no time at all, the fairing is skinned.

[ Laughs ]

That is really, really pretty. [ Laughs ]

That just looks frickin' awesome.

[ Laughs ]

That was worth the wait.

The fairing is finally complete,

and just as guys anticipated,

the bike looks like a teardrop crossed with a comet.

[ Grunts ]

It's like giving birth but in reverse.

[ Grunts ]

Lowering the back hatch now.

Okay.

[ Laughs ]

What do you think?

It's not at all uncomfortable once you're in here.

That's great. [ Laughs ]

Not at all uncomfortable,

but it's real test will be on the road.

Coming right up...

It crashed a trailer and obliterated a bullet,

but how fast can an rpg fly?

Kari: Wow. It totally penetrated.

It went all the way through.

That is crazy.

Do not try what you're about to see at home.

We're what you call experts.

[ Gunshots ]

Narrator: It may seem unlikely...

But the team has proved that a bullet can trigger an rpg.

Now they need to know where in the air they would meet.

Ready to do some science?

Oh, you know i am.

Down at the gun range, first they need to find out

the speed of the speeding bullet.

So, what we are trying to find out

is where, between the two dueling shooters,

the bullet and the rpg meet.

Now, we've set up a scale 80 feet long

just like two 40-foot truck containers

like the scene in the movie.

So, what we're gonna do is shoot the gun and the rpg,

measure how fast each of them are going,

then we'll be able to calculate exactly what point the two meet

and the explosion happens.

Narrator: And just how far away that explosion is

from the shooter and the rocketeer.

So, here's how the experiment's gonna work.

We're gonna use the same gun they had in the movie...

A Smith & Wesson .460.

Has a muzzle velocity of 2,200 feet per second.

We're gonna fire it through this piece of foil,

which will start the timer.

The bullet will hit this plate,

firing the switch and stopping the timing sequence.

We're gonna do it at 40 and 80 feet,

and through that, we should be able to see

where along the path the bullet and the rpg meet.

Narrator: So, first up, Tory's packing the heat...

Dude, this thing's so big, it looks like a cartoon gun.

To find out the speed of the bullet at 40 feet.

All right, this is the speed of the bullet from 40 feet.

Good shot. Let's go see what you got.

All right, see how fast that went.

Pretty fast.

22 milliseconds, to be precise.

Next, it's Grant's turn to turn on the firepower.

But I'm not gonna do this one standing up.

I'm gonna do this one on a rest,

because not only am i not John malkovich

but I'm not retired, and I'm only moderately dangerous.

Okay, this is time of the bullet from 80 feet.

Are you ready? Ready.

Got it!

See, you're not mildly dangerous.

[ Laughs ] You're a bad man.

All right, let's see how fast it took.

What do we got?

42 milliseconds.

Perfect. That adds up.

All right.

Narrator: After a hard day's shootin',

the guys have the bullet's speed.

Now to the second part of the equation...

The rocket-propelled grenade.

[ Sighs ]

It's a good day to be a mythbuster.

Tory: Got that right.

Grant: So, we know how fast the bullet flies.

Now it's time for us to find out how fast an rpg goes.

We're gonna take our rpg-7 launcher,

set it up on the test stand, put our scales behind it...

Aah!

And plot the data points.

And from that, we'll be able to find out

where the bullet and the rpg are likely to meet.

Narrator: And all that means is setting up the gauges

just as before.

The rocket is primed, and it's firing time.

Okay, here we are.

All right, now we can find out

where the bullet and the rocket meet.

Okay, this is rpg speed test.

In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

[ Laughs ] Whoa!

You see flash, boom! Yeah, you can't see it traveling.

You definitely need the high speed.

Let's go do some calculations.

Yeah, let's do some math.

All right, well, let's use multiple data points

because there's two stages.

You reach 20 feet in 43 milliseconds,

40 feet in 83.6 milliseconds,

60 feet at 125 milliseconds,

and 80 feet at 161.3 milliseconds.

Okay, so, if we flip this around,

we see that the bullet and the rpg meet at 64 feet.

So that's 64 feet from the bullet firer

and 16 feet from the rpg firer.

All right, so, why don't we set up the rpg

at that point between the two shooters

and see which one of them survives?

If anybody. [ Laughs ]

Go!

Narrator: Next, Adam and Jamie take to the street.

Hyneman crossing.

Narrator: But will their green bike get the green light?

Narrator: It's a given that, if something's aerodynamic,

it'll slice through the air better.

But does making a bike more streamlined

also mean it'll become greener

than its four-wheel counterparts?

Adam: We've coned out the Alameda runway,

and it is going to be our closed course

for motorcycle testing today.

And 40.

We're gonna use it to replicate

the exact same conditions of freeway and city driving

we had for the first round of vehicle testing.

Jamie's gonna start out on the motorcycle

and do seven laps

all the way down to the end of the runway and back,

which gives us 15 miles of freeway driving,

just like we want.

[ Sighs ]

This is both the start line...

And the finish line after a bunch of laps.

Then I've marked out a little city course

of some stop-and-go traffic,

and that Jamie has to do 25 laps of

to give us the 7 1/2 miles of city driving we need.

And that should give us a set of comparable numbers.

No city course is complete without signage.

And we've got signage.

Hyneman crossing.

Narrator: Yep, first is the base line for the bike without its fairing.

But before Jamie gets on his bike,

why did he choose it for the beat-the-car test?

Jamie: The name of the game here was to find a motorcycle

that is as environmentally friendly

as anything currently available on the market.

That means it needs to be of relatively small displacement,

fuel-injected, have a catalytic converter

and any other pollution controls available on motorcycles

as of this date.

So that's why we've selected this bike.

It's a 250cc, late-model, single-cylinder motorcycle

that meets all of those qualifications.

And once again, the pems will sniff out all its emissions

for this base-line test.

Are you ready? I'm ready.

All right, remember, 7 big laps, 25 small ones.

I'll be counting them down.

Here we go... late-model, low-displacement bike test

in 3, 2, 1, go!

[ Laughs ]

Oops. One more time.

In 3, 2, 1, go!

And now we wait.

Narrator: First off, Jamie goes 'round in circles

at 50 miles per hour for 15 miles of freeway driving.

[ Horn honks ]

Now it's time for some city driving.

Then he's in the loop for the city conditions,

complete with a stop sign and a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit.

[ Horn honks ]

Finally, after looping both loops

for 30 minutes in the saddle...

Now... It's a finish line.

Narrator: It's time to get a readout on the control data.

[ Motorcycle honks ]

Adam: The results are in.

We have our base line for our modern bike.

The good news is that

it's the most fuel-efficient bike we've tested by far,

and it gave the cars the best run for their money

we've yet achieved.

The bad news...

Its dangerous emissions are still surprisingly high.

Will our aerodynamic fairing increase the fuel efficiency,

and will the increase in that fuel efficiency

dilute the dangerous gases?

I don't know.

But it's time to bring out the bubble.

Oh. The prototype approaches.

[ Laughs ]

[ Horn honks ]

Are you ready for this? I am... all set.

All right, on the green flag.

Bubble bike in 3, 2, 1, go!

[ Laughs ]

Uh...

Restart!

Bubble bike test in 3, 2, 1, go!

That's the second time he popped the clutch on the starting line.

Narrator: After an identical start,

it's an identical course,

starting with a pedal-to-the-metal blast

of freeway driving.

[ Laughs ]

[ Horn honks ]

Lap one is away.

[ Laughs ]

You know those old films of, like,

people trying to take off of cliffs in flying machines

and they crash when they land?

It's exactly what that thing looks like.

Yeah!

I'm getting to like this.

Narrator: Then it's science fiction in motion

as Jamie puts the bubble through its city-driving paces.

It's getting kind of hot in here.

All right, Jamie, this is your last lap... last lap.

Narrator: And with that, Jamie's bubbly ride comes to an end.

[ Horn honks ]

[ Laughs ]

Nice work, man! You are done.

How'd that feel?

This thing is crazy, but i kind of like it.

I'll tell you, it looks like

a weird, kind of primordial airplane

every time it takes off down the Lane.

It's gorgeous.

Finally, it's down to the emissions data

to either confirm or burst this eco-bubble.

I wish we had a second bike.

Then we could ride the two of them off into the sunset,

you know?

Sure, why not?

Like the sign says, it's crunch time.

Let's have a look at the numbers.

All right, let's take a look and see

how we did in the fuel-economy category.

Well, the fairing bike did pretty well.

It got 70.9 miles per gallon.

It's the best across the board.

Now, i would expect,

because of the increase in fuel efficiency,

to see a corresponding drop in carbon dioxide emissions.

Let's call up the carbon dioxide chart and see how we did.

And there you go... 105 grams.

That's a fraction of everything else on the chart.

That is fantastic.

Now I'd like to see how we did in all of the other emissions.

Let's call up the last chart.

Oh. Not so good.

It is solidly in the middle,

and the cars are still winning, hands down.

Yep. Where does that leave us?

Well, you know, it's tricky,

because if you look at co2 alone,

the bikes win by a large margin.

But if you look at all the other pollutants,

then the cars are far better for the environment.

I think it's got to be busted, and here's why.

Over time,

cars have made a remarkable improvement very steadily.

And the bikes, well, the bikes have gotten better

but not near as much.

Yep, i agree.

At this point in time,

it is not better for the environment

to trade your car for a bike.

Next up...

I think everybody's dying.

Narrator: The finale of bullet versus rpg

goes out with a bang.

Narrator: In the deserts of new Mexico,

it's time to test the survivability of this.

But before they bring in the dummies,

there's just one problem.

Oh, i lost my head.

Grant: Okay, John, so based on our data,

if an rpg shooter and a gun shooter are 80 feet apart,

the rpg and the bullet will meet at 16 feet

in front of the rpg shooter.

What do you think about this?

The biggest problem with that

is that the rpg won't be armed at 16 feet.

It takes a lot farther to get out.

The rpg's just gonna keep right on going like a really big bullet.

Yep, and that's all down

to the two stages of the rpg's firing system.

The first stage of ignition

throws the grenade out of the launcher

at around 384 feet per second.

This sudden acceleration triggers stage two,

activating the rocket propulsion and arming the warhead.

So, unlike the movie,

the rocket must be at least 60 feet from its target to arm.

So, it looks like the myth is pretty much busted outright,

but what if it were a fluke?

How could we still look at this explosion?

We can do this by actually moving the target

farther away from the rpg launcher

to a range where it will actually be armed

and positioning our dummies in the appropriate positions

for the two individuals.

All right. Can i fire the rpg?

Mm, we'll see. Yes!

Right, all is not lost.

For the final parameter of survivability,

they'll tweak the setup to simulate a faulty rpg.

This time, the rpg will fire

from 60 feet behind the stand-in rocketeer.

I think we might have to increase our budget on mannequins.

This is a pretty ugly woman.

Come here often?

Narrator: And just like the movie,

16 feet in front of her

is where the now armed warhead will trigger.

But instead of a bullet...

Now, this piece of acrylic is representing our bullet.

Now, we know once the rpg is armed,

it doesn't take much to set it off.

Narrator: And, finally, 64 feet from that

is where a gun-toting dummy will be positioned.

Oh, wait a minute.

You're John malkovich. You don't get any hair.

Narrator: And for the lethality of the blast,

well, each dummy will have two gauges.

All right, what i have here is a large piece of pork belly.

This is gonna act like our human flesh.

Looks good. I like that. It's a nice hat.

Narrator: Firstly, the gory low-tech version.

Oh, god, it smells so bad!

Tory: It's got muscle, it's got flesh, it's got fat.

If the shrapnel goes through this and through the mannequin,

we know that's a kill.

Narrator: And second, the excitingly named high-tech version.

Kari: To measure the blast wave of the explosion,

we're using this... It's a bikini Gauge.

When you said bikini Gauge,

i had something totally different in mind.

Now, the way it works is that we have foil spread over holes

that represent different tolerances for the overpressure.

When the foil bursts, that will indicate our number.

Now, if this right here bursts, that's 20 to 25 psi.

That means that our shooters died

from just the pressure wave.

Narrator: Well, there's only one way to find out.

They're bunkering down for the rpg survivability.

[ Door creaks ]

Okay, this is survivability test,

rpg shooter versus bullet shooter.

Kari: In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

[ Laughs ]

Mackerel!

Whoa!

That was intense.

Narrator: Intense is right.

Unsurprisingly, the rpg detonates

and throws forward a shower of molten copper and debris.

But did the dummies survive it?

I don't believe this. She's still alive.

In the movie, she was totally decimated.

Tory: Yeah, and that goes along

with what we've been seeing with these rpgs.

I mean, they're not like regular grenades.

It's very directional. But look at that.

Our bikini gauges are still intact,

which means she would've survived that blast wave.

Narrator: Unlike the movie, the villain made it through,

but, more surprisingly, so did the good guy.

Oh, my god, that is incredible.

He did not get touched.

I mean, he didn't get hit by one single bit.

Grant: And look, our bikini Gauge didn't get ruptured.

Yeah, he may have survived but just by luck.

There was a stream of molten copper coming straight at him.

If he were one foot over, he'd be totally Swiss cheese.

Narrator: Especially since, in the movie,

the warhead would not have been armed on contact with the bullet

but on contact with the gun-toting good guy.

Yeah, this is the exact opposite of what it was in the movie.

He would likely have been killed,

and she would likely have survived.

It's busted. Totally busted.

Hollywood not being scientifically accurate again.

Huh.

Look, I'll admit it... I was fooled by Hollywood,

but here's why.

Normally, when we see an rpg hit something,

there's a big flash, and then that thing explodes.

But in this case, the rpg exploded in midair.

There was nothing to create any shrapnel.

And the bullet didn't have very much mass,

so there's nothing to stop that energy in its tracks.

As a result, all the energy went forward

exactly as it was designed to.

Well, that didn't suck.

[ Laughs ] No, it didn't.

Another day of work for the mythbusters.

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