There's a right way to do things...
In a recent issue of a magazine I never read, called Meat and Poultry, the editors quoted from another magazine I never read, Feathers, that is the publication of the California Poultry Industry. But the following story was irresistible. It seems the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has a unique way of testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken right at the 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 will survive a real collision with a bird during flight.
Well, it seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new high-powered locomotive they’re developing. They borrowed the FAA’s chicken launcher, loaded the chicken, and fired. The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, went right through the heart of the engineer’s chair, smashed the instrument panel behind him, 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 only one recommendation: thaw the chicken.
There’s a right way to do things. And if you do things the wrong way, the result is chaos.