you're supposed to thaw them out first...
Posted on 06/13/2016 9:46:27 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The chicken gun has a sixty-foot barrel, putting it solidly in the class of an artillery piece. While a four-pound chicken hurtling in excess of 400 miles per hour is a lethal projectile, the intent is not to kill. On the contrary, the chicken gun was designed to keep people alive. The carcasses are fired at jets, standing empty or occupied by “simulated crew,” to test their ability to withstand what the Air Force and the aviation industry, with signature clipped machismo, call birdstrike. The chickens are stunt doubles for geese, gulls, ducks, and the rest of the collective bird mass that three thousand or so times a year collide with Air Force jets, costing $50 million to $80 million in damage and, once every few years, the lives of the people on board.
As a bird to represent all birds, the chicken is an unusual choice, in that it doesn’t fly. It does not strike a jet in the manner in which a mallard or goose strikes a jet—wings outstretched, legs trailing long. It hits it like a flung grocery item. Domestic chickens are, furthermore, denser than birds that fly or float around in wetlands. At 0.92 grams per centimeter cubed, the average body density of Gallus gallus domesticus is a third again that of a herring gull or a Canada goose. Nonetheless, the chicken was the standard “material” approved by the US Department of Defense for testing jet canopy windows. Not only are chickens easier to obtain and standardize, but they serve as a sort of worst-case scenario.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencefriday.com ...
Too big for CCW!
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
“It does not strike a jet in the manner in which a mallard or goose strikes a jet—wings outstretched, legs trailing long”
Actually, they do tuck an instant before impact.
Been there, seen it. . .a couple of times.
It is reflexive for the birds, and they tuck to get smaller and drop (faster to drop than to climb).
I would guess most people heard about the test that used a frozen chicken vs a thawed one that went right through the cockpit into the cabin.
The Canadians learned that in order to conduct the birdstrike test effectively the chickens must be thawed.
It might be an interesting book.
I live near Aberdeen Proving Ground. Lots of really secure buildings there and guys who don’t really tell you what they do for a living. I had one over for lunch yesterday. He spent two minutes telling me what he did and saying exactly nothing.
I learned soon after moving here not to probe too deeply the friends who work on post.
I’m close enough that my house shakes occasionally from the BOOM’s
I still don’t know if that story is true, but it was the one of the first things I was told when I went to work for Cessna in the late 70’s in Wichita KS. I was told that a junior LearJet engineer used a frozen chicken, but I’m pretty sure that LearJet engineers were saying that about Cessna engineers, as well.
We use the chicken gun all the time...bird stike testing.
you're supposed to thaw them out first...
Wonder what they would do in a helmet strike on a F1 helmet on, lets say, a Petronas/Mercedes driver?
after watching Massa get beaned by that spring, prolly take Hammy's head clean off
That explains Kramerica’s chicken wire.
The US Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane’s windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.
The theory is that if the windshield doesn’t crack from the carcass impact, it’ll survive a real collision with a bird during flight.
It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they’re developing.
They borrowed FAA’s chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired.
The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, broke the engineer’s chair and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine’s cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.
The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation:
“Use a thawed chicken.”
Haas needs to set up one of these chicken guns at the slowest corner to take out the top qualifiers. That is the strategy he needs to get a top 10 qualifying position!
Haas needs to use frozen chickens and then claim ignorance. That is the ticket!
heh heh heh heh... i was hoping for a better finish yesterday
Still, Haas is not doing badly for a first year F1 team. Having the Ferrari drive train does not hurt, but they are not up to Ferrari for the chassis.
yup, this is their R&D year...
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