Because of the number of incidents of collisions between airborne birds and jet aeroplanes, Scientists at NASA were instructed to devise a foolproof method of testing whether aeroplane windscreens were capable of withstanding high speed impacts from birds. After much deliberation, NASA designed a gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all
travelling at maximum velocity.
In Britain, the recently formed Strategic Rail Authority, flush with taxpayer`s money, decided to purchase such a gun and test the windscreens of all new high speed trains before they went into service.
Arrangements were made, a gun was sent to Britain, and a number of chickens purchased from the local branch of Iceland in readiness for the tests.
The SRA engineers carefully positioned the new £3,000,000 high speed train on a section of track, lined up the gun, primed it, loaded up the chicken, and fired. The results were spectacular. The chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed through the shatterproof windscreen, smashing it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the driver`s backrest in two, and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin like an
arrow shot from a bow. The horrified SRA engineers sent NASA photographs of the disastrous results of the test, along with the designs and specifications of the windscreen and fragments of the chicken, and asked the U.S. scientists for suggestions.
NASA responded with a one-line memo...
..."Thaw the chicken before firing"
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