I thought Smash Lab had reached a high point when they brought along a jet plane to create a hurricane. I was wrong. In Wednesday’s episode, the challenge they took up was to bomb-proof an aeroplane. So what did they decide to do to test / implement it? Well, first, they blew up an unpressurized Boeing 747 rigged with C4 ‘just to see what an explosion is like’. Then, they got hold of some super-duper ultra-absorbent bubble wrap. Then they pressurized two DC-9’s to a pressure equivalent to that at 16000 feet altitude, rigged it with C4 again – and coated one plane with bubble wrap, and the other left as-it-is to ‘see the difference caused’. Then they blew it up. The bubble wrap failed, but they did prove that Discovery Channel has a LOT more money to blow up – literally – than wimps like National Geographic. Oh, and since they had to make a 1-hour long episode, they also gleefully blew up a few aluminium trashcans and smashed a few airplane glass panes using explosives (as a consquence of which they also smashed glass panes of cars in a nearby parking lot).
PS – It also helps that Deanne Bell is pretty hot.