Fun_People Archive
4 Jun
Other Flying Objects...

Date: Fri,  4 Jun 93 00:24:41 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Other Flying Objects...

 From: Claude Ginsburg <claude@espresso.rt.cs.boeing.com>

[In response to the article from The Weekly World News ("Flying Swami Sucked
Into Jet Engine!") I found this tidbit of corporate lore at Boeing. -claude]

Boeing has a chicken gun to shoot freshly killed chickens
at engine intakes and airplane windscreens.  It is a compressed
air gadget in one of the bunkers on the east edge of Boeing Field
(or was many years ago when I saw it) -- capable of blatting a
chicken out at about 500 knots.  The windscreen tests are indoors
but the engine tests necessarily involve sticking the business
end of the engine outside --- I have often pondered the result
as viewed from an airplane on the adjoining taxiway.

(By the way, they wanted to use geese for ammunition but they couldn't
find any of the right caliber.)

 - as told by Ron Hammond
 - Associate Research Fellow at Boeing Computer Svcs.

© 1993 Peter Langston