:00:08. > :00:11.Tonight on Bang we are taking a journey across London on one of the
:00:11. > :00:15.largest bus networks in the world to find out why travel can be such
:00:15. > :00:21.a nightmare. We will be sitting in some horrendous traffic jams so you
:00:21. > :00:31.don't have to. We find out what causes motion sickness. And how to
:00:31. > :00:37.overcome it. If you were watching last week, Jem will rise above all
:00:37. > :00:42.your traffic nightmares - he is building his pedal-powered plane.
:00:42. > :00:48.Now to those traffic jams. Commuters sit in them for hours.
:00:48. > :00:55.There are almost 500,000 kilometres of road across the UK. It is plenty
:00:55. > :00:58.of room for all of our 30 million cars if only we would spread
:00:58. > :01:05.ourselves out. We don't. Every day, millions of us need to squeeze on
:01:05. > :01:10.to the same few bits of tarmac for the same few minutes of the day. As
:01:10. > :01:14.the traffic begins to slow, you get your two kinds of drivers - those
:01:14. > :01:20.who are happy to sit in one lane and the others that are nipping in-
:01:20. > :01:25.and-out of lanes every time a small gap develops. Does that short-term
:01:25. > :01:29.gain benefit your overall journey or are you better off to just stay
:01:29. > :01:35.put? Research on this subject has been carried out. We thought we
:01:35. > :01:38.would put it to the test with two volunteers of very different
:01:38. > :01:42.temperaments. Behind us is some traffic that is building up to a
:01:42. > :01:47.traffic jam that lasts for about an hour all the way around this road
:01:47. > :01:52.to East London. You will sit in it! No! Your challenge is to stay in
:01:52. > :01:58.the middle lane and you cannot move out of the lane no matter how many
:01:58. > :02:03.times people honk at you. Dallas, YOU have permission to change lanes.
:02:03. > :02:09.Do not cause an accident. I will be careful. Are you ready? Yes.
:02:09. > :02:14.Gentlemen, start your engines. We will have no problems spotting the
:02:14. > :02:22.guys in these and to help us time their journeys, we have fitted a
:02:22. > :02:29.GPS tracker to each car. Where is the ignition? Let's do that. Let's
:02:29. > :02:33.do that! Bye. So, based on our experiment, what do you think is
:02:33. > :02:38.going to happen? I would be surprised if Dallas doesn't get
:02:38. > :02:42.there first. To be honest, I can't see Yan winning. I would be more
:02:42. > :02:50.surprised if he has gained much time in doing so. I'm living the
:02:50. > :02:56.dream. I'm going into the outside lane. If you are accelerating all
:02:56. > :03:03.the time, you are going quicker. What happens is a few seconds later
:03:03. > :03:07.you will end up braking. Bored with this lane now. So I'll move across.
:03:07. > :03:11.Doing science, sorry! You have a tiny advantage, but how does that
:03:11. > :03:17.affect the rest of the traffic behind you? When you have got a
:03:17. > :03:22.volume of traffic which is very close to the maximum capacity of a
:03:22. > :03:30.road network, any small random effect has a magnification on
:03:30. > :03:34.everybody else. It is usually called "chaos". That lane is moving
:03:34. > :03:38.faster. All of this... That lane is going faster! It causes people
:03:38. > :03:43.behind you to brake, that causes them to brake, a ripple effect and
:03:43. > :03:47.it is slowing everything down? one has beeped me yet! I have been
:03:47. > :03:53.staying in the middle lane at the speed limit. That has two
:03:53. > :03:56.advantages. You are not causing interruptions to the vehicles
:03:56. > :04:03.behind you. Currently in the outside lane, but changing to the
:04:03. > :04:09.middle. You will gain a minute or two, I guess, and end up a lot more
:04:09. > :04:15.stressed. And probably thinking was the trouble worth it? I am sure
:04:15. > :04:19.this is the right car park. OK, that is just over - that just took
:04:19. > :04:25.under an hour-and-a-half. Let's give Liz a call. She is probably
:04:25. > :04:31.home by now. Hello? It is me. I think I have won. I'm in the car
:04:31. > :04:35.park and no-one else is here. right, that sounds good. Were you
:04:35. > :04:39.at any point being really dangerous? I was being really,
:04:40. > :04:44.really careful. I was weaving in- and-out but I didn't speed. Did you
:04:44. > :04:49.get "road rage" at any point? minor "road rage". I'm wondering
:04:49. > :04:53.how far behind you Yan is. When you were driving along and changing
:04:53. > :04:57.lanes, did most people sit quietly? Or were other people trying to do
:04:57. > :05:03.the same thing as you? When ever you are stuck in traffic, you have
:05:03. > :05:08.always got that dilemma - there's Yan! Hang on, I will run up and see
:05:08. > :05:13.Yan! And the result? After a stressful hour and 20 minutes of
:05:13. > :05:18.lane switching, Dallas has gained just four minutes and 41 seconds.
:05:18. > :05:23.Listen, boys, thank you for being good sports and for sitting in
:05:23. > :05:27.traffic. See you soon. See you later. So if you are impatient like
:05:27. > :05:35.Dallas, spare a thought for all the people you slow down as you
:05:35. > :05:38.celebrate the minutes it's saved you. Or you could try to avoid the
:05:38. > :05:44.traffic altogether. Always one for an extreme challenge, that is
:05:44. > :05:51.exactly what Jem has been working When you watch birds fly, they make
:05:51. > :05:55.it look so easy. Who of us have never wished we could do what they
:05:56. > :06:01.do? We are at least three times the weight of even the heaviest flying
:06:01. > :06:07.birds and it is likely that no creature that heavy has ever flown
:06:07. > :06:12.using muscle power alone. It would take a lot of power to get a person
:06:12. > :06:18.up into the air. How much power? Well, it turns out that we might
:06:18. > :06:21.just have enough within our own muscles if only we could build a
:06:21. > :06:28.huge bird-like shape around ourselves that hardly weighed
:06:28. > :06:34.anything at all. Many people have taken on that challenge. Very few
:06:34. > :06:39.have succeeded. Most of them took years of work, often by whole teams
:06:39. > :06:43.of engineers, and they were flown by super-fit cyclists. Now, I'm
:06:43. > :06:50.fairly fit and my two mates and I have made a lot of odd stuff.
:06:50. > :06:58.Designing and building an aircraft in eight weeks is almost ludicrous.
:06:58. > :07:06.Hello. First, I put my idea to one of the few people alive who have
:07:06. > :07:12.flown under their own power. Thank you for listening. Bye.
:07:12. > :07:16.He did proper laugh at us! It is like he thought it was a crank call.
:07:17. > :07:22.But then, when I explained our plan and where we are at and how we are
:07:22. > :07:27.thinking of allocating money in the time, he seems to think that it is
:07:27. > :07:31.time, he seems to think that it is not impossible.
:07:31. > :07:35.Very few human-powered aircraft designs ever work. If we are going
:07:35. > :07:40.to stand a chance of getting something into the skies with our
:07:40. > :07:45.limited time and resources, I have got to try and learn as much as
:07:45. > :07:49.possible from every success and failure there has ever been. Now,
:07:49. > :07:57.the striking thing about any aircraft that's looked likely to
:07:57. > :08:01.take off is the sheer size of its wings. They have to be vast! Making
:08:01. > :08:08.something the width of an eight- lane motorway demands engineering
:08:08. > :08:15.at its most delicate. That also means it is permanently on the edge
:08:15. > :08:20.of total failure. What I need is a material that's really light and
:08:20. > :08:25.really strong - carbon fibre. It is essentially just string, but five
:08:25. > :08:30.times lighter and one-and-a-half times the strength of steel. That
:08:30. > :08:37.is amazing. Right. I'm properly convinced that carbon fibre is
:08:37. > :08:42.exceptionally strong. The thing is just like any other string, it's
:08:42. > :08:46.only strong in one direction. It is absolutely rubbish in any other way.
:08:46. > :08:54.Yet you want to make rigid structural components out of it,
:08:54. > :08:57.things that are strong enough to be a wing. You can make solid objects
:08:57. > :09:04.from ordinary string, tightly coiled, then glued together, it
:09:04. > :09:10.makes a sturdy-looking tube. Until I bend it. Notice the strong stuff,
:09:10. > :09:14.the string, hasn't broken. The glue that I used has. It was a very good
:09:14. > :09:20.glue, similar to that you would use for gluing together carbon fibre.
:09:20. > :09:24.The way you wind it makes all the difference, Chris-crossing gives
:09:24. > :09:28.good all-round strength. It is a far, far better-wound beam. Even
:09:28. > :09:33.better, I can create a combination of patterns using the strength of
:09:33. > :09:43.the string in different directions. It is this adaptability that makes
:09:43. > :09:49.carbon fibre so useful. There we go. That is totally working. I've gone
:09:49. > :09:54.and made a really strong beam out of string. Now all I need to do is
:09:54. > :09:59.apply the same thinking to the beam that is going to make up the
:09:59. > :10:05.structural element of my wing. To wind, glue and bake carbon fibre on
:10:05. > :10:12.that scale I've come to a team who specialise in making masts for
:10:12. > :10:18.enormous racing yachts. We have each down our calculations, but it
:10:18. > :10:23.is a first for both of us. This could still be a horribly expensive
:10:23. > :10:27.mistake. This is a very big moment. We have spent practically all our
:10:27. > :10:31.money on these. These are going to be almost like the bones within the
:10:31. > :10:35.wing. These have to take the entire lift-load of the aeroplane. They
:10:35. > :10:41.are the heaviest part of the plane. We have tried to make them as light
:10:41. > :10:44.and as structurally efficient as possible. If for any reason I have
:10:44. > :10:54.miscalculated that, the wings will fall off the plane or the plane
:10:54. > :10:54.
:10:54. > :10:59.will be too heavy to fly. We are going to load them up with 60 two-
:10:59. > :11:04.litre bottles of water. This is only strong in one direction. That
:11:04. > :11:11.is the direction to lift the whole thing. So if this twists for any
:11:11. > :11:21.reason while we are loading it up, snap, it's all gone. All our money,
:11:21. > :11:37.
:11:37. > :11:45.If it wants to go, it will want to go suddenly. Be ready. Oh. That's
:11:45. > :11:53.starting to go. It's going towards you. It is going... Lower it down,
:11:53. > :11:57.Jem. With only 50 bottles lifted, it starts to twist. We have no
:11:57. > :12:02.choice but to abandon the test. I have a feeling if we rush this and
:12:02. > :12:11.it twists, it will just break, and that is finished. Now I'm nervous.
:12:11. > :12:15.I want to see how close to breaking those wings are going to be. There
:12:15. > :12:20.is a fair bit of strain in that. With our only spare piece of wing,
:12:20. > :12:25.I am going to simulate the forces I think it will take in flight. If it
:12:25. > :12:30.can take 25 kilos of water along its length and half my weight on
:12:30. > :12:35.the end, then by my calculations it should at least survive take-off.
:12:35. > :12:40.The question is how much more can it take? The worst case scenario
:12:40. > :12:44.for any experimental aircraft is the wings fall off. You haven't a
:12:44. > :12:48.prayer. In our case, I'm more worried the wings will snap. They
:12:48. > :12:53.are only just strong enough for the job that they are doing. I'm going
:12:53. > :13:00.to stand on the scales, pull down on the end, that should simulate
:13:00. > :13:09.quite nicely the effect of all the rest of the wing. I will look at my
:13:09. > :13:18.weight go down and I will know how much is going on there. 35 kilos.
:13:18. > :13:22.That's almost all my weight! Oh! That was practically another 70
:13:22. > :13:32.kilos. I will have to calculate very carefully how that corresponds
:13:32. > :13:38.
:13:38. > :13:44.to an in-flight condition. Five times one and I was putting 75...
:13:44. > :13:50.Oh! We are close to breaking point. There is not a huge margin for
:13:50. > :13:56.error. I'm going to have to treat these wings carefully which means a
:13:56. > :14:01.smooth flight and no crash-landings. It is time to learn how to fly.
:14:01. > :14:06.Back to more unpleasant aspects of travel - motion sickness. What
:14:06. > :14:13.causes it and is there any way of preventing it?
:14:13. > :14:17.For thousands of people, a fairground waltzer will make you
:14:17. > :14:21.feel unwell. What is it about ferries, coaches and fairground
:14:21. > :14:26.attractions that make us go green? I know a man who can explain all.
:14:26. > :14:31.First, I will go around this thing again! Motion sickness is still a
:14:31. > :14:40.bit of a mystery. One theory is we associate dizziness with the
:14:40. > :14:43.symptoms of poisoning so we vomit to try and get the poison out. One
:14:43. > :14:48.man has spent his entire career trying to understand it so I have
:14:48. > :14:53.come to get his take on it. classic situation which makes us
:14:53. > :14:58.motion sick is if we are in a vehicle that moves up-and-down,
:14:58. > :14:59.side to side every five seconds which is typically the motion of a
:14:59. > :15:06.which is typically the motion of a cross-Channel ferry. The second
:15:06. > :15:08.reason is if we find ourselves in a situation which we term a conflict
:15:08. > :15:12.situation, the classic one is trying to read a newspaper in the
:15:13. > :15:18.back of a car, so there is a conflict saying we are moving about
:15:18. > :15:21.in the car and the vision which says we are locked into this visual
:15:21. > :15:26.environment. You put those two together and you are sick? Yes.
:15:26. > :15:29.Michael's research makes use of an interesting bit of apparatus and
:15:29. > :15:34.willing volunteers. Rob Thomas has suffered with motion sickness all
:15:34. > :15:43.his life. And as an RNLI lifeboatman in North Wales that can
:15:43. > :15:50.be a problem. The first time I remember it is when I was a child.
:15:50. > :15:56.There was a 16-hour ferry ride... Were you? Oh yes. The ferry was
:15:56. > :16:01.delayed for 24 hours and I was sick when the boat was still in the
:16:01. > :16:06.harbour. How is this chair going to help? We will try and teach him a
:16:06. > :16:10.method which he can use himself to stop feeling motion sick. Rob has
:16:10. > :16:16.tried a number of remedies but with no success. Do you rate any of
:16:16. > :16:23.these? Do they work? Or is it all up here? Many of these alternative
:16:23. > :16:28.remedies are medicines in their own rights. Ginger is a known anti-
:16:28. > :16:32.imflam tri. None have been shown to -- inflammatory. None have been
:16:32. > :16:37.shown to be effective. How does this chair work? We will rotate you.
:16:37. > :16:42.Then we will tilt you to a off-axis position but you are still rotating
:16:42. > :16:49.and we find this is a motion that makes people motion sick. We have
:16:49. > :16:53.to strap you in now, OK? First, we gauge Rob's natural tolerance
:16:53. > :16:58.levels. He can tell us how bad he feels on a scale of one to five and
:16:59. > :17:07.as soon as he reaches three, we will stop the torture. He is now
:17:07. > :17:15.tilted by six degrees, he is now 17 degrees. How do you feel? He is on
:17:15. > :17:22.two. He is on three. That was three minutes... Tilt back to vertical
:17:22. > :17:26.and slow down. Three minutes 27 and Rob's reached his limit. He clearly
:17:26. > :17:31.feels pretty rough and it is time for a recovery break. And time for
:17:31. > :17:37.Rob to try the professor's anti- nausea technique. This is what you
:17:37. > :17:41.do. During the motion, I want you to focus on breathing regularly,
:17:41. > :17:46.feeling yourself breathing in and relaxing, focusing all the time on
:17:46. > :17:50.that sensation of breathing in and the relaxation as you breathe out.
:17:50. > :17:56.How does this breathing technique stop the nausea from setting in?
:17:56. > :17:59.There is a very fundamental important mechanism in the brain by
:17:59. > :18:04.which breathing control mechanisms suppress the mechanisms of nausea.
:18:04. > :18:10.If you are breathing and you vomit at the same time, you would breathe
:18:10. > :18:14.in your vomit. It seems so simple but there is more to this than
:18:14. > :18:19.relaxation. The research has enabled Michael to understand what
:18:19. > :18:23.is going on inside Rob's body as the nausea kicks in. Start your
:18:23. > :18:28.controlled breathing now. 17 degrees. You are coming up to two
:18:28. > :18:32.minutes. Please indicate, how do you feel? OK, he is holding two
:18:32. > :18:37.fingers. Last time, Rob only lasted three-and-a-half minutes. His
:18:37. > :18:42.nausea's already at level two. If it gets any worse, we will have to
:18:42. > :18:49.stop again. Now coming up to three minutes. How do you feel, Rob?
:18:49. > :18:59.That's still a two. We are coming up to five minutes. Rob, how do you
:18:59. > :19:02.
:19:02. > :19:06.feel? OK, we got three. OK. Stop. How are you feeling? The end result
:19:06. > :19:12.still the same. But not as severe. The good news is you didn't get
:19:13. > :19:18.there for a lot longer. Five minutes 39 seconds? That is really
:19:18. > :19:23.good. Almost double the tolerance. Hopefully, it is less of an
:19:23. > :19:26.obstacle when I'm in the lifeboat. It is what I wanted out of today.
:19:27. > :19:33.feel sick watching that! You should not be sitting next to me on this
:19:33. > :19:36.bus. If you get sick on me... will try my best! Coming up: Dr Yan
:19:36. > :19:42.with the brain-teaser for you to try. This week, it is about wearing
:19:42. > :19:45.a helmet back to front, or something? People have often
:19:45. > :19:49.wondered whether humans have an internal compass we can use for
:19:49. > :19:52.navigation. That is what I am trying to find out. If you try and
:19:52. > :19:57.walk in a straight line, but without being able to see anything
:19:57. > :20:04.at all, then where do you end up? To the right? To the left? Straight
:20:04. > :20:11.ahead or back where you started? Thank you very much. If you need
:20:11. > :20:17.the answer to that, go to: Whilst there, you can get this free
:20:17. > :20:27.poster with lots of information about the series. Follow the links
:20:27. > :20:27.
:20:27. > :20:35.Thank you. We have only gone a couple of miles in two hours.
:20:35. > :20:40.Luckily, our journey stops here. Jem's is only beginning.
:20:40. > :20:45.We have finally started to build our aeroplane. It is essentially a
:20:45. > :20:48.bicycle with wings about the size bicycle with wings about the size
:20:48. > :20:54.of those on a Boeing 737. If you saw the last programme, you will
:20:54. > :21:01.know I can produce the power to fly my plane. But have I got enough to
:21:01. > :21:06.take off? And how long will I last? That's not my only worry. If this
:21:06. > :21:15.takes off, I will need to figure out how to fly a plane at the same
:21:15. > :21:22.time as peddling flat out. My home- made simulator is the nearest that
:21:22. > :21:30.I have ever come to flying a plane. It is time I tried it for real.
:21:30. > :21:37.Just reaching 3,000 feet now. I will release. The wings on this
:21:37. > :21:42.glider look huge, but the ones on our aircraft need to be bigger. I'm
:21:42. > :21:46.not sure I'm ready for this. For a novice like me, flying and
:21:46. > :21:53.breathing is hard enough. Imagine how it will be when I am pedalling
:21:53. > :21:58.flat out and using totally home- made controls. Now, I'm not hoping
:21:59. > :22:03.to climb to the clouds, but if all goes to plan, skimming just above
:22:03. > :22:13.this very runway in our own man- powered plane would be an
:22:13. > :22:14.
:22:14. > :22:17.astonishing result. Time's up. We have a rare window of good weather
:22:18. > :22:22.ahead so we are packing up everything we have built so far and
:22:23. > :22:27.moving very carefully to the airfield. This is where we will
:22:27. > :22:30.assemble the plane for the first time. We have attracted quite a
:22:30. > :22:36.crowd, including some eminent figures of the world of aviation.
:22:36. > :22:41.This is bigger news than I thought. Most of the experts around here
:22:41. > :22:46.like the look of it and seem to think it's going to take off. I on
:22:46. > :22:50.the other hand am far less sure. There is one last delicate job -
:22:50. > :22:55.wrapping a super-light skin over the wings. It is double-thick
:22:55. > :22:58.clingfilm and once you have ironed out the creases it makes a perfect
:22:58. > :23:08.aerodynamic surface. There is something about it that still seems
:23:08. > :23:14.
:23:14. > :23:23.This is it. It is fairly simple, really. I sit here. I pedal with
:23:23. > :23:26.everything I've got down here. That then turns this sprocket that turns
:23:26. > :23:31.that propellor. That provides all the thrust we can manage to drive
:23:31. > :23:36.this massive wing through the air. When that happens, hopefully the
:23:36. > :23:46.wing diverts enough air downwards to push me and the whole plane
:23:46. > :23:46.
:23:46. > :24:34.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 48 seconds
:24:34. > :24:38.It is my first chance to try out the steering. The controls are just
:24:38. > :24:42.tiny levers with elastic bands to give a bit of feel. Like a remote-
:24:42. > :24:51.controlled plane, there is one for up-and-down and one for left and
:24:52. > :24:56.right. Everything else is down to brute force and gut feeling. Here
:24:56. > :25:01.goes. I know one false move could be catastrophic and when I stop,
:25:01. > :25:06.the plane could topple and shatter. The wings are curving as planned,
:25:06. > :25:11.the curves are needed to reduce the amount of roll and they are holding.
:25:11. > :25:16.My steering and my speed just aren't good enough. No flight. Not
:25:16. > :25:19.this time. I didn't really give it full power because I was
:25:19. > :25:28.disconcerted by the way the aircraft was leaning. I was trying
:25:29. > :25:33.to get the hang of the control. We are going to go again. I give it
:25:33. > :25:40.loads more welly. Keep the power going! It is still not enough and
:25:40. > :25:48.all I can think about is saving those wings for another attempt. I
:25:48. > :25:53.just pedalled as fast as I could, I tried to keep the plane steady. It
:25:53. > :25:58.was running out and I jumped off so I didn't damage the plane. And I
:25:58. > :26:02.didn't quite manage to pull that off. It is a reminder of how
:26:02. > :26:07.fragile this thing is. There is more major damage at least. Next
:26:07. > :26:11.time I will have the courage to cling on when it stops and hope the
:26:11. > :26:16.wings can take my weight. For now, it is back to rebuild my broken
:26:16. > :26:21.plane and reflect on my efforts so far. Until I get to a certain speed,
:26:21. > :26:24.about 12 or 13mph, my control surface, my tail and rudder, they
:26:24. > :26:30.don't do very much. There is not enough wind going over them for
:26:31. > :26:34.them to work particularly well, so I've got very little control at
:26:34. > :26:41.low-speed. Consequently, it starts leaning and there is precious
:26:41. > :26:48.little I can do about it. There is only an hour or so left before the
:26:48. > :26:55.airfield opens. But the good news is the wind is picking up. The head
:26:55. > :26:58.wind helps and... Go! I don't know, maybe more experienced pilots would
:26:58. > :27:07.be soaring over the treetops at this point. If I put everything
:27:07. > :27:17.into this, I hope I will get the control I need. With each run, I
:27:17. > :27:28.
:27:28. > :27:36.get faster and faster. OK, I'm good (BLEEP)
:27:36. > :27:42.I'm on. When you first go up, you have no idea what to do. Oh my God,
:27:42. > :27:47.I've left the ground! Now I want to stay off the ground. It is amazing!
:27:47. > :27:52.I'm going to go and do it again. I feel the more I do this the better
:27:52. > :28:02.I will get. There is only enough time for one last attempt before
:28:02. > :28:23.
:28:23. > :28:33.We've flown a bicycle. Under human power. The ground disappeared. Then
:28:33. > :28:38.
:28:38. > :28:44.Apparently, the Wright Brothers' first flight was 12 seconds. I'm