Urban legend? I dunno. I know the Air Force has these things, so it
seems perfectly credible (not to mention damned funny). Subject
mine; text from Somewhere Out There...
john marlow
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. These traveling collisions with airborne
fowl are used to test the strength of windshields. British
engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the
windshield of their new high- speed trains. Arrangements were
made to borrow the gun. But when the gun was fired, the
engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the
barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it into
smithereens, crashed through the control console, snapped the
engineer's backrest in two, and embedded itself in the back wall of
the cabin.
Horrified, Britain sent NASA the disastrous results of the
experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and begged
the U.S. scientists for suggestions. NASA's response was just
one sentence:
"Thaw the chicken."
John Marlow
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