Alan
I hate to spoil a good story, but I can remember seeing British programs
about aeronautical research in the early 1950s (long before NASA) with this
sort of testing being conducted. Bird strikes, both windshield and engine
intake, seemed to become a problem at that time.
The most important thing that I recall about the testing was the need to
select the right sort of bag for the bird, otherwise there could be a lot
of messy cleaning to be done after the test.
Trevor Jordan
74 TR6 CF29281U
At 12:27 PM +1100 24/2/99, Alan Myers wrote:
>I picked this up off the Vintage Race list... I've seen it before, hope
>it's new to you...
>
> Scientists at NASA had developed a gun whose purpose is to launch
> dead chickens at extreme velocities. No, this isn't the result of
> over-competitive engineers at the annual Goddard Chicken Toss
> (though that would be a perfectly understandable consequence.) The
> gun is used to shoot dead chickens at the windshields of airline
> jets, military jets, and the space shuttle, (while they are parked,
> that is) at that vehicle's maximum velocity it could be traveling
> while in "bird space." As such, it simulates the frequent incidents
> of collisions with airborne fowl, and therefore determine if the
> windshields were designed strong enough.
>
> British engineers, upon hearing of the gun, were eager to test the
> gun out on the windshield of their new high speed trains. However,
> upon firing the gun, the engineers watched in shock as the chicken
> shattered the windshield, smashed through the control console,
> snapped the engineer's chair backrest in two, and embedded itself
> into the back of the cabin. (Luckily, the train was unmanned at the
> time :o)
>
> Horrified, the engineers sent NASA the results of the experiment,
> along with the design of the windshield, and asked the NASA
> scientists for any suggestions.
>
> NASA sent back a one-sentence response: "Thaw the chicken first."
>
>
>It could be one of those "myths", but is pretty believable! Only
>American engineers would come up with such a test!
>
>Alan Myers
>San Jose, Calif.
>'62 TR4 CT17602L
>--
>MZê
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