b3ta.com board
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Home » Messageboard » Message 2309541 (Thread)

# Frozen Birds - Yeah.
He's winding you up. Frozen birds don't flap. There is a requirements that aircraft engines can cope with being hit by a bird (I know!) and probably something similar for the aircraft.

Nice photos at
community.webshots.com/album/7715991EBaTmHolTI/1

In the industry, there's an urban legend about British Rail borrowing the UK engine company's bird gun to test their new train design, and some jerk using a frozen bird (with hilarious consequences.) Sound slike your dad's quoting a variant of this story.

Maybe I'll post about my job as a Roustabout...
(, Tue 11 Nov 2003, 16:14, archived)
# Maybe they defrosted the turkey first.
Would have made for a more realistic simulation. Would also be more humane than collecting live birds and hurling them at the plane...?

Maybe? I don't know...
(, Tue 11 Nov 2003, 16:28, archived)
# I get images
of them using parrots

and the parrots letting out a last squawk

and now I'm laughing... Hull for me
(, Wed 12 Nov 2003, 17:18, archived)
# Nah
My mate, an aero engineer, has told me a similar story, they test their planes by chucking birds at them. Probably defrost them. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't, cos a safety margin is an engineers best friend.

He's told me some scary stories about planes.
(, Tue 11 Nov 2003, 20:26, archived)
# Alas this is true
As an aircraft deisgn engineer you get to see some terrifying things, but I have actually seen a military aircraft (no names but seeing as I work in Britain you can probably work it out) tested with a frozen chicken and the resultant mess. This was in 1997 during the certification tests, suffice to say the authorities were not shown the results instead a new aircraft was obtained and a non-frozen chicken used..



(, Wed 12 Nov 2003, 8:37, archived)
# We use (very heavily) anesthetised ducks.
(true)
(, Wed 12 Nov 2003, 15:06, archived)