A really "trick" cannon was used at China Lake-NWTC & Edwards-AFB to test the impact resistance on All Weather Aircraft wind screens & canopy's. Fresh Frozen chickens were defrosted the day before and "shot" out of a high pressure tube at the subject wind screens & canopy's simulating bird impact in flight. At the end of the test you could not imagine the carnage unless you saw it. What a mess. Many times I wished I was able to photograph the scene - but no cameras allowed.
Michael Taylor. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Steel Balls vs. Chickens In the late 1960's I was working on what became IBM's first copier. We made frequent use of "NESA" glass, a PPG product. This consisted of an ultra-thin gold layer deposited on glass sheets. We could perform photoconductor light-discharge experiments by coating the PC on the gold surface, and expose from the opposite side. I was told that the NESA glass concept was developed during WWII to defrost bomber windshields. These were typically made of plexi-glass, and would not thermally conduct sufficient heat from within the cockpit to defrost the exterior. The gold coating was placed on the outside of the windshield, and DC current passed across the surface to create enough heat to melt frost. The question of durability of the gold coating to birds striking the surface was established by "firing" dead chickens at test surfaces. I often kidded one of my mechanical engineering friends that he could and should design a top-of-the-line chicken "cannon", with variable muzzle velocity, variable bores for using birds of different sizes, etc. As you know, jet airplane engines are still tested for their resiliency to birds both small (near airport ground level) and large (those ecountered at high altitudes) by similar methods. George Alspaugh ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: [email protected] Dave Heald [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: No longer online until our new server is brought online and the old messages are imported into the new server.
