Sometimes it does take a rocket scientist

Mnementh

Golden Member
Jul 16, 2003
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Scientists at Roll Royce built a gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, and military jets, all travelling at maximum velocity.

The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.

American engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the American engineers.

When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the
engineer's back-rest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an arrow shot from a bow. The horrified Yanks sent Rolls Royce the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield and begged the British scientists for suggestions.

Rolls Royce responded with a one-line memo:



















"Defrost the chicken."
 

Calin

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2001
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I read it long time ago, but the european develop high speed trains... and americans develop cannons (even if chicken cannons)

Calin
 

NickE

Senior member
Mar 18, 2000
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Similar sort of thing, but this is definitely true as it was done at the R&D lab where I used to work. One of the clever scientists there had read about high-speed military plane crashes, where what tends to happen is that on impact the pilot's bones carry on because of their inertia and exit his body, collecting on the inside of the flying suit and leaving flesh behind.

This scientist was involved in process development for our frozen food company, and had been given the task of developing a quick and reliable method of deboning chickens. He reckoned that a similar process to a plane crash with a chicken would do the job, and had a rig built that would launch chickens (thawed, either cooked or uncooked) into an elastic catch net. All worked pretty well, some trials actually removed bones from the animals. Finally the project got stopped when one of the chickens missed the net and hit the main house - 18th Century manor house in the English countryside, great place for a research lab, but not so good as a chicken target!
 

natto fire

Diamond Member
Jan 4, 2000
7,117
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Haven't you ever seen "Mythbusters" on Discovery channel? They built a similar cannon and even went into the whole story. Damn that is some good television programming I must say.
 

Aharami

Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
21,205
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haha. thats what i was thinkin as i kept on reading along "that chicken MUST be frozen"
 

hevnsnt

Lifer
Mar 18, 2000
10,868
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Originally posted by: Captain_Howdy
Haven't you ever seen "Mythbusters" on Discovery channel? They built a similar cannon and even went into the whole story. Damn that is some good television programming I must say.

He forgot to mention.. Frozen or Thawed, it didn't matter. The chicken hit with the same force.
 

maziwanka

Lifer
Jul 4, 2000
10,415
1
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wow. the story didnt sound believable at all.

yet, it was still amusing..

edited: just read snopes....

Presumably you know that aerospace companies often fire chickens at test aircraft canopies to see how they would stand up to flying through a flock of birds during takeoff? This is true of British Aerospace also, however one time it went wrong.

Just before lunch, the engineers set up the chicken-cannon, loaded a frozen chicken into it, and left for the canteen. The chicken would be just about defrosted by the time they got back to do the test. When they came back, they got behind the protective wall, started the high-speed cameras (to play back in detail what happens), and fired the chicken at the canopy. Normally, it should just bounce off, or make a nasty dent. This time, the canopy was destroyed. Bits everywhere. Having checked the cannon, and looked through the (expensive) wreckage, they decided to view the film, to see if it would provide any clues. It did. During lunch, a cat had climbed into the cannon, lured by the smell of fresh chicken, became part of the test.

OH MAN