Guest tom w Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 this is WAY off topic but it is TOO good not to post here, please forgive me if this has no place here... Rocket Science Sometimes it DOES take a Rocket Scientist: Scientists at NASA have developed a gun built specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields. British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made. But when the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed through the shatterproof windshield, smashed it to smithereens, tore through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin. Horrified Britons sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and begged the US scientists for suggestions. NASA's response was just one sentence, "Thaw the chicken." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sabot Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Steve, Is it too late to include frozen chickens in the loadouts for U.S. tanks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Dave Barry wrote an absolutely side-splitting piece on this some years ago. Apparently he was able to witness a US test of the chicken cannon. I unfortunately cannot remember what he said (something about "this is the culmination of all recorded history) but the article is almost certainly in one of his collections. DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 When I worked on the 737/757 programs at Boeing I got to see some video footage of this type of testing (thawed chicken version). It was very interesting to watch and, I might add, highly entertaining. This footage also included the launching of the chicken directly into the inlet of a jet engine running at full throttle. Messy, but interesting none the less. Mike D aka Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Mike D., what do you refer to as "messy" ? I really admired the clean cut slices ... there is something about inertia, I tell you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Those who know about aviation are probably familiar with "bird strike". I've personally seen the damage done by birds to an F/A-18 (thawed even) and it seems surprising what a little bird can do. They're not the LITTLE INNOCENT THINGS they appear to be at the bird feeder. Noooo... they are SAVAGE masters of the sky that must be brought down with impunity.... Hopefully the man-portable version of the "chicken launcher" will be considered a highly regulated weapon to be issued only to federal, state and local govt. agencies. I shudder to think what would happen to our streets once this weapon was mass-distributed to teenagers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
przy Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 I used to help butcher chickens on my grandparent's old farm. My cousins and I used to test and see how far a chicken would run after its head was "removed" from its body. Oops, wrong king of testing, my bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Will the US government allow its citizens to fire thawed chickens only? Surely the NRA should get in here and proclaim that frozen chickens are a valid hunting tool and must be protected at all costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sabot Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 Fionn, Can a frozen chicken fired from a Hellcat penetrate the frontal armor of a Tiger? I am about to start a PBEM with SS PL and i want to know if i should be concerned. Also, how accurate are Nebelwerfer fired frozen Turkeys? [This message has been edited by Black Sabot (edited 04-28-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
109 Gustav Posted April 28, 2000 Share Posted April 28, 2000 This sounds like a great weapon. I am an expert in shooting *at* chickens, but only with my potato mortar. Maybe I should build a chicken mortar and shoot it at potatoes instead. I live on a farm, so we have plenty of both around. ------------------ There is nothing certain about war except that one side won't win. -Ian Hamilton 1920 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Thomm, Messy = Thawed chicken goes into engine inlet *** and *** passes through lots of fan blades turning at high speed *** and *** presto, pureed (like the setting on your blender) chicken comes flying out the engine exhaust at very high speed. I also got to hear lots of stories while working at Boeing that most people never hear/know about (we won't go into them here because some of you would probably never fly again ) However one of the more interesting ones was how on occasion down in South America there are small airports with unimproved (basically gravel) runways where 737's land. Some of these airports have herds of horses that roam freely about on the airport property since it is pretty much out in the country. This includes roaming freely on and around the runway itself. Of course it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what eventually ends up happening, right? Want to talk about messy. Just imagine an airplane running into a horse w/ engines at full throttle during takeoff and that baby getting sucked right into the engine. Needless to say, there isn't much of the engine left when this occurs. As for the horse, well let's just say you have a big "messy" on your hands there. Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 04-28-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spider Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 anyone see the footage of the guy sucked into the side vent of the prowler? he survived with a broken arm, went all the way into the plane and got caught in the blade, pretty amazing footage...... there was a chicken there too.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Zeares Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by 109 Gustav: This sounds like a great weapon. I am an expert in shooting *at* chickens, but only with my potato mortar. Maybe I should build a chicken mortar and shoot it at potatoes instead. I live on a farm, so we have plenty of both around. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> BTS, will the potato mortar make it into CM, or will it have to wait for CM2? What's the effective range of the Kartoffelwerfer, anyway? Weren't they sometimes mounted in place of the Nahverteidigungswaffe? -- Mike Zeares Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 LOL. Kartoffelwerfer = Bombs de terre? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Jenkins Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Actually, I think the cannon was developed by the Air Forces Wright Aeronautical Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. I lived there as a kid. My father was an officer in the lab (he worked on Star Wars). He told us about the chicken cannon. At first, they fired regular ones, but after getting tireds of the mess, they bought them at the store. None of the cockpit windows they designed worked. The Air Force has never made a canopy that can stop a chicken at 600 miles-per-hour. ------------------ Allahu Ackbar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Black Sabot, WARNING !!!! Test have shown that thawed chickens are ONLY effective against exposed crewmembers of the Tiger. Frozen chickens can give mobility kills and degrade targetting ability but only rear engine decking hits with frozen chickens guarantee a kill. Recommend you return to base and reload with frozen Swordfish... Recently one of these went right through a Tiger I here at Aberdeen. The only problem with frozen swordfish is that each swordfish takes up the same space as 10 frozen chickens and it doesn't taste as nice if you decide to cook it out in the field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Bull Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by spider: anyone see the footage of the guy sucked into the side vent of the prowler? he survived with a broken arm, went all the way into the plane and got caught in the blade, pretty amazing footage...... there was a chicken there too....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Spider, I have seen that footage. Amazing stuff and you say he actually survived! with only a broken arm??!! Where did you hear that? Lt_Bull Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 If BTS is looking for ballistics on a potato cannon, I could do it if I could fire it through a chronograph (could be mucho expensive though - skyscreens don't come cheap). However, if you're looking for the midpoint between potatos and frozen chickens, I have a mortar that will fire a cement filled beer can about 500 meters... actually punched a hole through a 1974 Plymouth car door at 150m (took about 6 shots to acually hit the car though) Craig "looking for a bigger gun" Harvey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanzfeld Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 I can testify to the absolute MESS a little bird can make on an aircraft. A year and a half ago I was flying a 29 seat turbo-prop out of a small airport called State College in PA. I was about 3/4 the way down the runway on takeoff (hot and heavy) and I went right through a gaggle of small birds (sparrow size). One hit my First Officers window and COMPLETELY splattered and blocked ALL vision out that window. Another one hit my window (left side) and almost completely blocked my vision. Another five or six went into my left engine. I was in the process of rotating so I did not abort. The left enigine started to smoke and make a high pitched whining noise (the compressor was bent up really bad) but it did not quit (say what you will about Garrett Enigines but that baby ate a whole Thanksgiving dinner and kept on kicking!). The one thing that really surprised me however was the BOOM of impact when that little bird hit the window. It was like a rifle shot. Also....the amazing variety of colors the inards of a bird displays upon close inspection. Green, purple, yellow, and red. I had to look through that mess to land!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lindan Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Hmm, is it just me or are the threads getting a bit *strange*, now with CM due to arrive in a short while...? GIMME THAT CHICKEN!! (I'll eat it alive) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest GriffinCheng Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 I see the label on the cannon says "The use of Chicken Cannons (both thrawed for "hard" targets and non-thrawed for the rest) are not recommneded on targets who are cut off and/or starving." Griffin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted April 29, 2000 Share Posted April 29, 2000 Boy, haven't heard this Urban Legand in years. Time to close it up Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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