Re: Ariane 5 failure

["Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93" <condicma@PWFL.COM>]

Frank Manning <frank@BIGDOG.ENGR.ARIZONA.EDU> writes:
>In article <32678222.6F5C@lmtas.lmco.com> Ken Garlington
><garlingtonke@lmtas.lmco.com>
>
>> As for the birds, there is an interesting test done here in Fort Worth.
>> (At least, we used to do it -- I haven't actually witnessed one of these
>> tests lately). To determine if the canopy will survive a bird strike,
>> they actually take a bird (presumably of mil-spec size and weight), load
>> it into a cannon-type deveice, and fire the bird at the canopy. By the
>> way, it's not a good idea to use a _frozen_ bird for this test...
>
>When I was in the Air Force, I heard a rumor there was an Air
>Force facility that used chickens for similar testing. At one
>time the guy in charge was a certain Colonel Sanders...
>
    There is, in fact, a Mil Spec bird for bird-ingestion tests on jet
    engines. (Similar procedure - fire 'em out of a cannon into the
    turbine blades and film at high speed so you can watch it get
    sliced into cold-cuts.) The specification may well apply to canopy
    impact tests also since it would be seeing similar takeoff/landing
    profiles.

    I hear the Navy has it's own standard for bird-ingestion. The
    birds that follow aircraft carriers are apparently larger than
    a Mark One/Mod Zero Air Force bird.

    MDC
Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        561.796.8997
M/S 731-96                                      Technet:    796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Fax:        561.796.4669
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