GREAT MOMENTS IN ENGINEERING In an issue of Meat & Poultry magazine,

GREAT MOMENTS IN ENGINEERING

In an issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, editors quoted from
"Feathers," the publication of the California Poultry Industry
Federation, telling the following story:

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."