This was so nasty I just gotta clean my mind out.

I like this one better - recently posted on the 
N scale (that's a model railroading term, don'tcha know)
listserv.  Might be one of those urban legends, but by
golly I just think it *deserves* to be true even if it
isn't!

<clip begins>

A story just to hand.....

The US Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device 
for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes.  The 
device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane's 
windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.
The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the 
carcass impact, it'll survive a real collision with a bird 
during flight.  It seems the British were very interested in 
this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy 
locomotive they're developing.

They borrowed the FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken 
and fired.  The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, 
went through the engineers chair, broke an instrument panel 
and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab.  

The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test 
to see if everything was done correctly.

The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation;

"Use a thawed chicken."

<clip ends>

Michael Pelikan
'74 Super Sun Bug - see it at  http://www.atlcom.net/~csaari/sunbug
'93 EuroVan MV 5 speed