Fun_People Archive
31 Aug
Windshield Testing

Date: Thu, 31 Aug 95 12:47:17 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Windshield Testing

Forwarded-by: larryy@apple.com (Larry Yaeger)
Forwarded-by: Stephan Somogyi <somogyi@digmedia.com>

The FAA has a device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes.
They point this thing at the windshield of the aircraft and shoot a dead
chicken at about the speed the aircraft normally flies at it.  If the
windshield doesn't break, it's likely to survive a real collision with a
bird during flight.

The British had recently built a new locomotive that could pull a train
faster than any before it.  They were not sure that its windshield was
strong enough so they borrowed the testing device from the FAA, reset it to
approximate the maximum speed of the locomotive, loaded in a dead chicken,
and fired.  The bird went through the windshield, broke the engineer's
chair, and made a major dent in the back wall of the engine cab.

They were quite surprised with this result, so they asked the FAA to check
the test to see if everything was done correctly.  The FAA checked
everything and suggested that they might want to repeat the test using a
thawed chicken.

© 1995 Peter Langston