Bird strike test

[mowens]

I think we're all familiar with the concept of bird strikes. I've known the general idea behind the testing for this but not the details. We recently had a team that was present for this testing. Here is their report. I particularly enjoyed the chicken rainbow comment.

"The bird gun is composed of a steel barrel that is 35 feet long with a 6-inch diameter bore. It's connected by a valve system to a large tank pressurized with nitrogen gas. The Inlet article has the target location marked and is placed 5 feet from the end of the barrel. The bird gun is sighted onto the target with a laser bore-sight. A live 4-pound chicken is weighed, humanely euthanized, weighed again, bagged, placed into an aluminum sabot, ("sei-bou") and then loaded into the breech of the bird gun. A sabot is an open-top can that provides for a uniform loading surface during the launch of the bagged chicken projectile. The sabot is shed from the projectile before it reaches the target. After loading, the breech is then bolted closed, and the tank is pressurized. After the tank is fully pressurized, the SWRI bird shooter calls "Attention on the range! Attention on the range! 5-4-3-2-1-ZERO!" ... "SKEEEEEOOOOO-POW!" The bird gun has a very distinct sound when fired, accelerating the chicken projectile to more than 300+ knots! The impact was immediate and impressive and generated boisterous cheers from everyone watching! Due to the nature of how the Inlet performed, the projectile did not penetrate our structure, but rather formed a large spoon-like dent, which re-directed the remains radially into a 360-degree chicken rainbow. This process was repeated for the second target location. Both tests passed! Customers were happy!"

So, they weighed the chicken while it was alive and then again after it was dead. So we now know how much the soul of a chicken weighs.

[Jeff]

lol wtf?

Is this for aircraft engine testing? It doesn't say what they were shooting it at.

[mowens]

It is for an inlet structure, not the engine itself.

Back at the beginning of the 757/767 the windshield area had to be redesigned and new tooling built because it failed the bird strike test. When a bird strike happens, the whole plane is involved, not just the engines.

[mowens]

There are pictures but it is an internal company email so I can't show them. Imagine looking straight at an aircraft jet engine. The lip around the engine is what they were shooting at. There were large, blood spatter dents where the birds hit.

[Newbeeee™]

Interesting Mike....as it always was a frozen chicken used....

[gcode]

Years ago they were doing bird strike tests on F35 cockpits.
They had an air cannon that launched chickens at 500 mph into the front of the aircraft.
The test were failing badly, shattered canopies, demolished crew seats and heavy damage to the aircraft.
There was no doubt the pilot would not survive such a strike.
After several days of failed tests, the engineers were standing around surveying the damage and talking among themselves.
A worker who was cleaning up the wreckage from the recent failed test came up and said


"Excuse me sir, aren't you supposed to thaw these birds out first?"


dang... I just saw Newbee's post... he beat me to it

[Newbeeee™]

dang... I just saw Newbee's post... he beat me to it

Hahahaha - but it always was a frozen chicken - to keep it together while projecting.
Thawed would disintegrate at speed - so they froze them....and that was "the standard".
Perhaps it's related to velocity - slower (300mph) test projectile is not frozen and faster (500) is?

Ima talking mehself into digging out the DEF Standards....and an eye has uncontrollably started twitching already....

[mowens]

Maybe that's why they use the sabot now, also.