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chicken cannons, was Re: Hushpuppies



There is a story that British Rail borrowed the Air Force's chicken cannon
to test new high speed railroad locomotives at the insistence of their rail
labor unions.  They called in panic, after the first "chicken" shell broke
through the windshield and destroyed an electrical cabinet in the rear of
the engine drivers compartment.  The Air Force personnel went over the test
procedures, including the parameters of the chicken in question.  It appears
that the Air Force just went to the store and purchased frozen chickens of
the proper weight, and instructed the Brits to do the same.  Unfortunately,
the Brits missed the instruction to allow the chicken to thaw before use.

Randy Hees

PS... Should the combat archivest use the chicken cannon with frozen hush
puppies?


----- Original Message -----

> I checked the archives here at Arnold AFB, here in the South,  and much to
> my surprise, there is no mention made of doing impact studies with hush
pups
> here. We do all sorts of aerodynamic testing, both civil and military
> aviation. We evaluate projectiles of various sorts, notably 4# chicken
> carcasses which are zinged, at subsonic speed, into high performance
> aircraft canopies. Gets a bit messy and smelly in hot weather. This is to
> determine impact characteristics of birds into aircraft, always a very
> serious problem. Large commercial aircraft engines actually ingest birds
> sometimes, which can cause the plane to crash (I think FAA guidelines now
> call for engines to be able to ingest a 14# bird without a hiccup to the
> engine). Anyway, our famed 'chicken gun' here could probably heave those
> little dogs into oblivion really quickly. I can envision a salvo of the
> weight equiv to a 4# bird of hush pups splattering into the canopy now...
> The hypersonic range would do even better; they'd definitely be beyond the
> smithereen stage.
>
> Sharon Lee Butcher
> Reference Librarian
> AEDC Technical Library
> 100 Kindel Drive, Suite C212
> Arnold AFB, TN  37389-3212
> Phone:  931-454-4430
> Fax:  931-454-5421
> e-mail:  sharon.butcher@arnold.af.mil
>

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