Chicken gun

Bird strikes are a significant hazard to flight safety, particularly around takeoff and landing where crew workload is highest and there is scant time for recovery before a potential impact with the ground.

The speeds involved in a collision between a jet aircraft and a bird can be considerable – often around 350 km/h (220 mph) – resulting in a large transfer of kinetic energy.

A bird colliding with an aircraft windshield could penetrate or shatter it, injuring the flight crew or impairing their ability to see.

[2][3] Despite this, the risk of bird strikes is impossible to eliminate and therefore most government certification authorities such as the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency require that aircraft engines and airframes be resilient against bird strikes to a certain degree as part of the airworthiness certification process.

[4] The first recorded chicken gun was built in 1942 by the US Civil Aeronautics Administration in collaboration with the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company.

To fire the gun, an operator triggered the opening of an electric quick-release valve, dumping the compressed air into the barrel.

[11] The United States Air Force built the AEDC Ballistic Range S-3 at Arnold Engineering Development Complex in 1972 to test the canopies and windshields of military aircraft.

[10][15] The component to be tested is mounted securely on a frame, the gun fires a bird at it, and the results are examined for compliance with the relevant standards.

The motivations for this range from ensuring that results are easily reproducible across the industry, cost, and sensitivity to the views of animal rights activists.

Some go further and state that the farm-raised birds commonly used in tests are also unrepresentative owing to the lower density of their muscle tissue.