Building A Helium Raft! | MythBusters | Season 4 Episode 9 | Full Episode 

I heard that helium cannot be made and it is taken from the earth and once it runs out then it's gone. those stupid party balloons will not exist in the future.

Worth it... Screw the demand for medical use.

We actually aren't running out of helium. Radioactive decay creates helium in the crust of our planet

i was just thinking that while watching this.. did they ever recycle all that helium or did it just get let into the air

Please all of u do not believe what they say about running out of natural things n this cap about only fossil fuels..the earth renews all of its self all of our air all if our water mall of our gases..we will not run our maybe in an area n move to the next but the earth will renew..remake it is built to do so. It's all renewable do we need to be careful n protect our earth. Yes but it will remake n renew blessings to all

There are a few phones that do cause really bad radio interference. Blackberry phones from 2008 to 2012ish all caused a lot of radio interference (like a buzzing static) whenever you'd get a call. I know it was real because my old blackberry got a text message one time and it made the bus radio go haywire causing the driver to have to turn it down almost all the way. I could see how for that reason alone itd cause havoc on a plane

Yeah, they said as much when they did the Hindenburg.

The US started to ban exports to ANY country in 1925 (so 8 years before the Nazis took power and Germany). It wasn't because of moustache-man and his henchmen, since in 1936/37 the crimes which they were committing/are going to commit weren't really known yet to the outside world.

Its 2024, you can say Hitler bro. If you're gonna drop a teachable moment on people, go all the way.

@@Damaged7 I had the choice to either do that or drop a History Matters reference. I chose later.

​@@Damaged7 it's RU-vid, it won't like it

well one of those worked

He already answered that lead balloon was the hardest myth to make, due to the extreme difficulty of getting thin enough lead.

A raft that flies on helium? Sounds like a zeppelin. 🤔

@@MrXeCute No, it doesn't, by definition, a zeppelin is long and cylindrical in shape and with a rigid framework, no wings, has an engine and contains a gas mixture to make it lighter.

Basicly a Zeppelin is an airboat. So it can be a raft... What they tried to do in a smaller scale, is a raft... but you need too much uplift power, provided by helium to be proficient (you need more square meters to provide that kind of uplift). Learn some basic physics. Basic education in the EU btw. ;)

well back when phones first came they did interfere allot with electronics around them. when ever you where about to get a call your TV would make a strange noise before your phone even starts ringing. so i think this was just something left over from the late 1900s when phones could cause problems and it just took a while to get regulations to change. but today tech is so advanced that phone signal poses no threat to other electronics and regulations have cought up which is why you can now have your electronics running on the plane.

@@rampage3337 all that being said, If there was a real danger they would have banned them from planes.

If a gun was a danger to human beings, they wouldn't be permitted to own or carry them.

@@Damaged7 Don't make a false equivalence fallacy.

Things have moved on since this episode.

Thing is the main characteristic of 5G is that it only works on shorter distances. So there's no way it'll be a problem in the air. As you pointed out the instrument that it could interfere with is something that really only gets used during landing to help with line ups. It shouldn't have much of an issue distinguishing the signals in that kind of environment.

Seems like the BBC just keeps better records.

You do understand how old this show is right? Things change, technology changes. Its not so much that it would crash the plane as interfere with the electronics and instruments. I mean, if you were driving your car and your speedometer didn't work well thats not going to cause you to crash but you probably still don't want to drive like that.

​@@Damaged7 Nonsense, even old planes were tested for RF interference, due to things called "lightning", which emit RF signals a million times stronger than a cell phone. (And no, an airplane is not a perfect Faraday cage - it has windows where external RF signals can get through.) Cell phones were banned primarily because it was the perfect kind of security theater that also helped the bottom line.

@@i.m.9823 it’s about altering the signal being received and giving false information versus causing the plane to crash. As an example of sensitivity, Nickel ore cause significant compass deviations and flying around the northern edge of Lake Superior and Huron can cause, up to 15° compass variations because of the High nickel content in the ground. The original instruments used for navigation were very sensitive. Planes needed to be tested with all equipment on, to determine how they interfered with each other. A small needle deflection due to interference can have huge consequences over 100’s to 1000’s of km’s. The instruments don’t need to go wild, in fact, that would be ideal because the pilot knows there is a problem. What’s more an issue is a small deflection that the pilot wouldn’t notice and it’s a very tiny window to cause problems. Aviation relied solely on radio frequency instruments up until about 15 years ago. Even though GPS was around before that, it was usually a supplemental tool until very recently and even today, it’s mostly classed as a secondary instrument, even though it’s practically used as primary. Pilots use both, but if there is a conflict in information, there really isn’t a way to test GPS is off, other than using instruments that rely on frequencies and because most planes have more than one frequency based instrument. GPS has more issues than people think and the radio instruments proved to be more accurate and reliable for 50-60 years, already. That, and it took a long time to update the whole system, to start switching to gps. Old phones were not as shielded and the regulations on which bands they could use, were not as strict/followed. They operate far more as an analog device than the digital devices we have today. The aviation industry knew for decades that other electronics can cause deviations in the instruments. With the advent of cellphones it became a concern of “We can’t be sure if that phone is safe, but we know similar devices can cause problems, so we want to to turn it off.” Today, I’d say your phone is safe, today. I have an older plane and fly with my cellphone on, I don’t fly relying on instruments and fly by visual flight rules (VFR). Oddly, one of the biggest instrument errors I’ve seen was putting my hand up on the instrument dash, next to the floating compass, and the nickel in my ring turned the compass s about 30°. Why do you still need to turn it off? Because they want you paying attention to landing and take off and when you are in the air, you are too high and too fast to keep a signal. I fly at 4000’ and have a hard time getting a signal for more than 4-5 minutes.

They busted the myth because there is no possible way to make a normal raft fly just by filling it with helium

@@theemptyone7650exactly!

Stupid comment

@@theemptyone7650 But they sure didn't need to build a helium balloon that just looked like a raft to prove anything.

@cejannuzi yeah,I know..but they always do that with every myth..they take it to extreme just to prove it's impossible to confirm a myth under normal circumstances

Different tech, and you no doubt used a satellite mesh network on the plane, as well. Proof positive that tech is really cool, and laws have to catch up.

Lmao I was thinking the same thing, literally the only non renewable element on earth and they just go and waste it on this crap 😂

Yeah, screw science when we could fill balloons for childrens parties!

"the only finite resource in[sic] earth"? _Everything_ on the earth is finite. Even sunlight is finite. It won't stop for millenia yet, but it will stop at one point. Entropy has the final say anyway.

Fossil fuels are finite as well. Granted I’m not thrilled about the helium useage but it’s drops in the ocean compared to military applications.

You do understand how old this show is right?

Back in the late 90s, cell phones could shut off your tv if you got a call. Way different bands and tech than nowadays. Bear in mind, also, that the shielding tech has gotten way better. It's why the older dial-type gauges reacted to the old band cell phones used to use, but the newer ones they tested on gave no response. It's a simple matter of 'tech improvement' leading to reconsideration of older laws.

In modern times we tell people that because they're more likely to follow the instructions the real reason is because the safety briefing is important even for experienced flyers. And in the case of a crash most likely to happen during take off and landing having everyone mental prepared to get up and get off quickly is super important. Having your phone in your hand and earphones in can greatly increase the amount of time before you brace and sometimes all you have is seconds

@@thecandyman5321 If that were the case then they would confiscate books, magazines and newspapers as well.

If they'd had a way to cut out a lot of the material and instead make a more efficient chamber for it, it would have been smaller, but the sheer volume of helium needed is just impractical. Absolutely.

They were very common in the late 90s and early 00s. They've largely been phased out nowadays. It was basically a satphone the the airlines would run and charge an arm and a leg to use. The instrumentation the plane had allowed them to work without interfering with the electronics in the plane, but with Mesh networks and better shielding, that isn't a problem these days.

You know when you go on a plane there's a little touchscreen on the back of the seat for you to use? There used to be phones there instead.

I bet there is going to be a day when helium will be worth more than gold by volume

The EU now allows phones on planes but when the episode was filmed they were still banned.

This was from an episode almost 20 years ago. The laws have changed since then, because shielding on planes has gotten far better, and cell carriers use different frequency bands. Those bands are tested THOROUGHLY before anyone gets to use them, just in case. This episode pretty much highlighted to the FAA that the laws needed updating REGULARLY to keep up. FAA puts out new guidelines every year now.

Germany isn't special, the entire rest of the world also takes their phones and other electronic devices on planes. You understand how old this show is right? Oh BTW, check your super advanced German phone as it probably doesn't have an airplane mode on it since you never needed it right?

Caulk

When the emphasis was on doing stuff, rather than people

Time to go back to bed, grandpa

‘Woke’ used as a negative, opinion useless

What are some more great shows you can name from the period?

Please

Greetings from Germany

Are you even human? That includes @borntoclimb7116

Why?

​@@uknownhero2764because he is simping

You crazy mate ❤

Yet, HERE YOU ARE🤣😂

Can you not hold it in when you see her?