( air blowing )
( shouting ) We're in the...
( shouting inaudibly )
( television beeping )
- Well, that was too loud. - I should say so.
- Should we try again? - Yeah, yeah. Go again.
Okay, we're in Nuneaton, England
at the Horiba Mira full scale wind tunnel.
Gav: It's usually used for studying the aerodynamics of different things,
like cars, but today, we'll be testing ourselves in the wind tunnel
in a very highly requested video.
I feel like I've got eight years worth of emails saying,
"Get in a wind tunnel." So we did.
Well, the thing is, I used to be way more aerodynamic
than I am now, so that's gonna be quite a challenge for me.
Well, I feel we've waited the perfect amount of time
- to make this video. - Great.
Why don't we start by cranking this thing up to the max
and get some lovely Phantom shots
of us trying to stay upright.
What's your pose gonna be like?
It might be one of these,
- or like a-- - Okay, to practice.
I'm just gonna do this.
So this wind tunnel goes upwards of 80 miles an hour
and you can't really just have a bunch of lights
and cameras loose,
so we've got everything tethered down,
weighted down.
Even the crew are tethered in.
( laughter )
One thing to note about this wind tunnel,
it's probably common in wind tunnels,
- is that it sucks. - Oh, it doesn't blow?
It doesn't blow, it sucks all the air out this way,
and there's a load of grates on the other end.
I never really knew that about wind tunnels,
but I guess that's probably true for all of them
because otherwise you're gonna get the buffeting of the fans.
Whereas 'cause it's sucking, it's like really clean air.
Yeah, and the other side of the fan it's very turbulent
and much harder to measure aerodynamics.
All right, okay, ready for a thumbs up?
( sharp exhale ) Yeah, let's go.
Okay, we're good.
Look at him sitting there
with his perfectly nice air conditioned room.
( exhales )
- ( fans whirring ) - Gav: Okay.
- Dan: It's already scary. - Gav: And it's spinning.
Dan: Yeah.
( shouting ) It's hard to breathe!
( fans stop )
Well, that doesn't mess around.
I feel like I could lose my--
you know, like, my sleeve's half on, half off.
- Yeah. - I feel like this could go.
- ( laughs ) - I feel like I could lose it.
Should we go see what that looks like?
Oh, I'm breathless.
- Yeah, oh, my mouth is so dry. - ( babbling )
Gav: Imagine if you did a hundred meter sprint
- and they cut to this slow mo. - Dan: And you look like that.
They'd be like bloody hell, this guy could run.
Gav: Well, if you ran 80 miles an hour
then that's exactly what it would look like.
Dan: This is the least flattering,
like it displays all the gut...
- Gav: Hm. - Dan: ...receded hairline.
- Gav: Yeah. - Dan: It's got it all.
Gav: Yeah, I can tell. I can see.
All right, Dan. Re-point the camera to the side.
A nice profile shot should really show
the flappy lab coats
and the amount of lean that we can get on this.
Do you think I'll be able to get--
you'll be able to get more lean than me
because you weigh less? Or do you think--
- Probably, maybe. - All right.
- Okay, we're ready. - Ready.
Let's go, let's hit it.
( fans whirring )
( soft music playing )
Gav: You're so good at this.
Look at ya.
Dan: That's a full 45 right there.
Gav: Oh, you're so good at this compared to me.
( laughs )
Dan: Really struggling there.
You are properly at 45 degrees,
maybe even lower.
Gav: I'm proud of that.
I'm gonna try a jump.
Might be dangerous.
The thing is, I weigh so much more than you.
I'm gonna be like, I'll flap back
I'm just gonna be like...
- All right, you ready? - Yeah, I guess so, let's go.
( fans whirring )
Dan: So I was trying to see if 80 miles an hour is enough
to be sat in a wind chair
and it worked, it worked.
Gav: You just down on air.
Dan: I feel like five seconds I just sat there like this, like--
Gav: I was trying to grab the back of my lab coat
to make a little parachute...
- Dan: Yeah. - Gav: ...but it was bloody hard to get it
'cause... ( imitates wind blowing )
Dan: Yeah, exactly.
Gav: It's hard to hold on to it.
- It leapt forward into the wind. - Dan: Whoa.
Gav: I actually caught air.
Dan: You did, and it's pushed you backwards and you--
Gav: That's purely blowing me back
because I made sure to jump a little bit forward.
Dan: Yeah.
Why don't we start testing some elements?
- Ooh, okay. - Yeah, all right.
Like, uh, real water, like, fire.
Just like water. Probably not fire.
Okay, just not fire.
All right, I feel good about this.
- Dan. - Dan: Yes?
How do you feel about this?
- Not good. - ( laughter )
I gotta get some air.
That's some like light rain there
and some not so light rain there.
Hey, we haven't even started yet.
All right, let's crank the wind.
Ah, man.
( fans whirring )
Gav: Thank you.
Did you get a bit wet?
I didn't stand a chance. ( chuckles )
Ah, man. What did that feel like?
Like I was literally in a storm
of some sort of magnitude of...
I've never heard of.
Gav: You look like a certain singer from a 90's music video.
( Dan laughs )
Gav: ( chuckles ) You can see--
Dan: Look, it's turning into thicker water
when it goes past my ear.
Gav: It's splatting off your face, mystifying,
and then you're leaving like mist trails.
- Dan: Yeah. - Gav: Look at that.
Dan: It's like I'm a plane going through the air
causing mist.
Gav: We deliberately back-lit this
so the rain shows up really well
against the black background. ( laughs )
Dan: I strained my head as well.
Didn't go for my body, straight to the head.
Gav: Well, yeah. See? And that was, like, full stream.
You can see how it mystifies it all.
Dan: Oh, yeah. The wind's so powerful that it just--
Gav: That is really raining sideways.
Dan: Oh, God. Look at underneath there.
It's just completely streaming away.
Gav: It's hitting you so hard that it will bounce off
and it will literally bounce away from the wind
that there's so much force.
Dan: So the way the hose is, it's like a stream, right?
- Gav: Yeah. - Dan: I'm turning it into a mister.
- Gav: Yeah. - Dan: It goes into me and turns into mist.
Gav: It's a two part misting system...
- Dan: Yeah. - Gav: ...and you're part two.
The rain was all right, I think we need something
- slightly more torrential. - Dan: All right.
Do you reckon this is torrential enough?
- Oh! - Not bad.
- It's a bucket of it. - I'm gonna do well to actually bloody get this
into the air, it's gonna be well hard.
You're just gonna hit my legs with it.
I'm either gonna splash your legs a lot
or I'm gonna let go of it
and the whole thing will knock you off.
Oh, no, I don't want-- do not let go of that bucket.
Well, I'm not gonna do it on purpose, am I?
All right, let's tether all that..
I'm gonna get my block knocked off.
( fans whirring )
Uh... ( laughs )
- Hey! - ( laughter )
So cold.
That's what I was dealing with the bucket, basically, right?
- I threw it. - Yeah.
Like, air got inside it. It was gone from that point.
The air was swirling around inside it, like...
- ( babbling ) It soaked me. - ( laughs )
And I was just trying to hold it,
it was like a kite.
Bugger.
Let's take a look at that.
Gav: Look, from the previous attempts
- the water that is still on you... - Dan: Oh, yeah.
Gav: ...is blowing off, it's actually an air dryer.
- Oh-ah. - Dan: You nailed my face there.
- Gav: I did. ( laughs ) - Dan: Oh, you soaked me.
- Gav: That looks cool. - Dan: Look at my face.
- Gav: It's a 90 degree shutter. - Dan: It's like a windshield.
Does it ever rain that hard?
- Gav: Like a bucket's worth? - Dan: Yeah.
Gav: Maybe.
( imitates splash noises )
( chuckles ) That is absolute.
Dan: That looks like it's mist.
Gav: An absolute torrent.
You can actually see the goggles flapping
- against your face. - Dan: Oh, yeah.
And my cheek is going-- look at my cheek going.
Gav: A little bit of chest hair going.
Dan: All right here comes the torrent.
Gav: It's like you have an open chest hair.
Dan: That is proper sideways rain.
Gav: Oh, it's magic.
As the water bounces off your face,
it bounces off, but all like the same distance
before it gets blown back.
So you end up with those weird, like white, mist masks...
Dan: It's like a halo around my face.
Gav: ...just sat around-- look at that liquid.
- Dan: Oof! - Gav: You must have drank a lot of it there.
Dan: ( laughter ) I think so.
Gav: You gotta love that.
So, you said to me, you wanted to do a test.
Well, you know when you're like blowing a balloon and everything,
- you're blowing up a balloon. - Gav: Yeah.
I brought my own balloon and I thought I wanted to
try blowing up a balloon in a wind tunnel.
- Gav: Okay. - Okay.
- Gav: Yeah, that kind of a balloon. - Yeah, it's a balloon.
- All right. - It's a slippy balloon.
- ( laughs ) - You know, one of those lubricated balloons
Yeah.
The see-through party ones.
( laughing ) Okay, let's see what happens with this.
Okay, here we go.
It's a condom.
( fans whirring, air blowing )
( screaming )
( laughter )
That is without a doubt the stupidest thing
I've ever recorded in slow motion in my life.
Dan: ( laughs ) It was like a wind sock.
Gav: What have our lives become?
Dan: Look at my face. I'm enjoying myself so much.
It was going like this for ages,
I was like, stretch it.
As soon as I let the wind like even slightly stretch the edge,
it went-- whoa!
- Whoa. - Gav: Look how big it got.
- Dan: It's huge. - Gav: It's fobbling all over the place.
- ( slow motion screaming ) - ( laughter )
Gav: How do they-- like, why do you need different sized ones
if that's how big they get?
I saw that little twinkle in your eye.
The little idea twinkle.
You've come up with a new sport haven't you?
I have.
- You know you get sailboats and stuff? - Yeah.
- How about wind powered skateboard... - Yeah.
- ...Powered by a balloon? - Yeah.
So I'm gonna lay here... ( grunts )
let the wind inflate my balloon
and hopefully it'll have enough power to pull me along
like a rocket.
This is a world first, this.
I don't think this sport's ever been done.
I wouldn't have thought so, I'm very excited.
( fans whirring )
( laughs )
It's almost offensive the amount of effort
gone into a place like this
and then we show up and do that.
Yeah, for scientific testing purposes
- of automobiles and then, ooh-- - Have a look.
( laughter )
There is definitely technique to it as well. ( laughs )
I'm just like, "I've got this."
Something about your flat hair with your smug face,
- with that flapping in the wind. - ( laughter )
Goodness, gracious me.
That was funny.
( sharp exhale ) I've got a headache now after that.
It was just so much fun.
Well, that was absolutely insane.
I've never operated a Phantom
in such mental conditions.
You are telling me I've stood here
during this outro
and I feel like I'm like this.
- Like, isn't it-- - Preparing.
I'm like wait, oh, yeah, wait I'm not in there anymore.
At one point I was trying to steer,
'cause the camera kept panning in the wind
and then I was holding it
and the screen started flapping around.
But somehow we got some very usable, lovely Phantom shots.
Yeah, it should be a test
whether you could be a good camera operator
if you can withstand those conditions.
- Yeah, for like-- - A hurricane category one against me as well,
- because I had the wind. - Yeah, I feel like I need a certificate or something.
Yeah, also, these propellers are actually from
a World War II bomber, which is pretty crazy I thought.
Yeah, well hopefully you enjoyed that video.
A big thanks to Horiba Mira
for letting us use this massive wind tunnel.
Make sure you check out part two
and feel free to subscribe
to the Slow Mo Guys.