US defence research, old but good and true

Hitman_Leon

Hitman_Leon

Hitman_Leon

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This is another old true story I had mailed back to me some will have seen it but here go's,


TRUE STORY

Sometimes it DOES take a Rocket Scientist(true story)

Scientists at Rolls Royce (GB) built a gun specifically to launch dead
chickens at the windshields of airliners, and military jets , 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.

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."
 
oh god lol mao

I've seen this on MythBusters when they had the chicken cannon and shoot a froozen bird out of it and it basicaly went through the cockpit window and out the back and then lodge itself in the top corner of i think a bullet proof screens and it took them a few minutes to find it as they did'nt notice it got stuck there lol.
 
a friend of mine did his PhD for the MoD and actually went down there (farnbrough i think it was) for a month and saw the chicken gun himself!! - that was about 94/95.
 
I heard a story from the old days of Tube Investments Group or TI as they were called. The Americans were convinced they had made the smallest tube ever, microscopic in fact so they sent it to TI to show off. The story goes that TI sent it back with a tube inside it!
 
I got an old one that was when ze Germans were developing acoustic torpedoes - i.e. they homed on the sounds generated by enemy ships.

Of course, they had to fire a few to test that everything functioned.

Consequently, on the first test fire they realised one issue - firing it into open sea, resulted in the torpedo doing the only thing it could.......turning around and coming right back at the ship that fired it :D
 
Longbow said:
Indeed, NASA told the British, "Gentlemen, thaw your chickens."

But as AcidHell2 as mentioned, it's a myth: http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.asp
Click to expand...
...and, reading through that full article, it appears the USAF preferred frozen birds because "... They further believed cold chickens provided a better simulation of a bird that had tensed to prepare for the impact."

They go on to say they've since switched to clay/plastic birds because of those PETA-philes.
 
Raist said:
...and, reading through that full article, it appears the USAF preferred frozen birds because "... They further believed cold chickens provided a better simulation of a bird that had tensed to prepare for the impact."

They go on to say they've since switched to clay/plastic birds because of those PETA-philes.
Click to expand...

:/

I had heard (slight variation of the OP's story?) that the Russian's had developed it and the Americans somehow got wind of it. They broke the glass they were testing and it was only after the USSR was disbanded could they then find out that they had to defrost the chickens..
 
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Heard a story about the bird bazooka as well where a cat got into it, obviously intrigued by the smell, and was launched along with the chickens. Aparently the slow motion video shoots were quite humourous.

Now we know that planes are chicken and curious cat proof.

This was told to me by my Aircraft Structures lecturer and thus I believe it to be true.
 
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