Feb 9 2009What Happens When Bird Meets Jet Engine
This is a test demonstrating what happens when a foreign object enters a jet engine before buying it dinner first.
Wide Body, Blade-Out Jet Engine Test. Short video showing what happens when a foreign object such as a large bird is ingested in a jet engine. You don't want to be onboard!!!! The joke during training was that you could ingest a 5 lb. bird at 250 kts.......... or a 250 lb bird at 5 kts. They actually have a "chicken gun" they use to fire the chickens into the engines for these tests.
Oh man, just imagine if -- wait, did that just say chicken gun? I want a chicken gun.
UPDATE: So apparently this isn't the chicken gun test after all. Youtube user dknric is a liar! Just like your parents -- you were adopted.
Thanks to Ain, who once sucked a mourning dove into his jetpack's engine and had to crash land in a tree, where he befriended a squirrel. Yay for happy endings!
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Reader Comments
1. Peregrinus - February 9, 2009 4:37 PM
Snarge
2. hiyooo - February 9, 2009 4:38 PM
fizzzirrst. like the rest of you. i sat and refreshed my page until finally this time of glory came upon me. hello godhood!
3. hiyooo - February 9, 2009 4:39 PM
alas my fingers too slow, my diction to long...
4. Tricky Ricky - February 9, 2009 4:40 PM
FAILURE !!!!
It was supposed to fall off the stand and wind up on the bottom of the Hudson River..just like the other two real ones did...
5. Daisy - February 9, 2009 4:45 PM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete photoshop job. You can tell its a fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene in the movie Never Back Down where Max goes to a demo at Rex Kwan Do's Karate school. Rex told him after a week of trasining he could have the strength of a grizzly, the reflexes of a puma, and the wisdom of a man
6. Spam Artist - February 9, 2009 4:46 PM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete photoshop job. You can tell its a fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene from the movie Tender Dracula where NASA took credit for an English invention 30 years after its creation.
7. Spikey DaPikey - February 9, 2009 4:48 PM
Wonder where i apply to fire chickens into jet engines :oD
8. seriously? - February 9, 2009 4:49 PM
Im pretty sure Gizmodo had this up in the morning...same with the cake.
9. Mr. Sausage - February 9, 2009 4:56 PM
They should've thawed the chicken out first, tsk!
10. Evanivitch - February 9, 2009 4:59 PM
This is ollllllldddddddddddddddd.
And Rolls Royce even have a multiple-chicken cannon for that flock effect.
11. Evanivitch - February 9, 2009 5:01 PM
Infact that's note a bird strike simulation but a blade failure test. A small charge is placed on one of the turbine blades hence the explosion. The test is to see that all the debris is held within the casing and doesn't blow a hole in the wing and fuel tanks.
12. richo - February 9, 2009 5:02 PM
kts??? anyone?
13. Moose Knuckle - February 9, 2009 5:04 PM
Is the chicken gun something that could mounted on the side of midsize car?
Just asking..
14. $.02 and a pocket full of FAH_Q - February 9, 2009 5:16 PM
I have no issue communicating without the use of profanity. Quite frankly, the english language offers much more colorful adjectives. The point being made is simply that in this country, where this blog is hosted, we have freedom of speech. The same freedom of speech that would protect this blogger (GW) in court. I find it rather disingenuous of him to post NSFW content and genitalia jokes, then censor our comments about them.
@12 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_(speed)
I totally want a chicken gun. On a skateboard.
15. Huge Boner Guy - February 9, 2009 5:19 PM
I've seen what a chicken strike test looks like, and this doesn't look like it. Evanivitch is right... it's an engine failure test.
And it doesn't matter in a chicken test whether the bird is thawed or frozen. At 300 mph, it strikes with the same force either way.
FIRST!!
16. Elmo - February 9, 2009 5:23 PM
effing chicken gun! I need that!
17. Shoka - February 9, 2009 5:24 PM
This is what they call a Blade Off test. As Evanivitch said, they use a small charge to blow one of the front fan blades off while at full throttle. It totally destroys the engine, but that's not the point, the test is to see that no debris breaks through the case around the fan itself. So, if you're sitting watching the in flight movie and this happens, you don't get skewered by a bit of broken blade, it all gets shot out the back.
18. naas - February 9, 2009 5:24 PM
@13 most likely....
I'm definitely into the chicken gun too. Imagine what someone who survived being shot by one would say to explain poultry protruding from their cranium....
You: Hey man, what happened to your head? It looks like someone beat you with a friggin chi...
Them: Just shut up, it's from a chicken gun.
You: I wanna try....
19. Shoka - February 9, 2009 5:25 PM
A bird ingestion/bird-strike test is nowhere near this spectacular.
20. Jackson - February 9, 2009 5:33 PM
Numbnuts Geekologie writer:
This is a blade out test where a small charge is attached to a blade to see if the engine can contain the blast.
21. trolling numbnut - February 9, 2009 5:44 PM
Numbnuts Geekologie writer:
This is a blade out test where a small charge is attached to a blade to see if the engine can contain the blast.
22. bitching numbnuts - February 9, 2009 5:44 PM
Numbnuts Geekologie writer:
This is a blade out test where a small charge is attached to a blade to see if the engine can contain the blast.
23. naas - February 9, 2009 5:47 PM
SO THERE"S NO CHICKEN GUN THEN!?!?
24. Watch - February 9, 2009 5:48 PM
mmmm mmmm, theres some KFC for you right there
25. Pew³ - February 9, 2009 6:07 PM
I flew single engine fighters in the Air Force, but this plane has four engines. It's an entirely different kind of flying altogether.
26. ahha - February 9, 2009 6:07 PM
I wonder if the pilot could still function with a chicken (frozen or thawed) fired at him. That is what we really need to know. If someone is out there trying to take down planes by firing chickens at them, they aren't going to fire just one. There is a very real possibility that the pilot could get hit. We need to know if he can take it.
This would all be moot if they could get that damn teleporter up and running already.
27. Adam - February 9, 2009 6:13 PM
Hey, GW, you fracking idiot! Wolverine was born with claws. Claws of BONE!
28. naas - February 9, 2009 6:35 PM
@26 Striker!!...Striker!!...Striker!!!!!!! *pccchhtt
29. formerly SPELLINGNAZI© - February 9, 2009 6:35 PM
@26: lol, so you straddled a lawn dart :p ..Sir ;)
30. dycantos - February 9, 2009 6:53 PM
there's no chicken there an C4 charge on one blade to simulate a blade out test and the chances of a C4 charge exploding on a plane engine and exploding is nill unless you bother me then its quite possible
31. dycantos - February 9, 2009 7:03 PM
ima test pilot btw get to watch them destroy engines all the time but then i have to fly them luckily im batsh!t or that might make me think twice about flying
32. formerly SPELLINGNAZI© - February 9, 2009 7:07 PM
@31/32...guess you don't need an education to be a "test pilot".
33. obi wan - February 9, 2009 7:11 PM
winner winner chicken dinner
34. Mr.Anderson - February 9, 2009 7:51 PM
You know, for some reason (probably due to the low res) this is what I imagined happening in slow mo:
A clown hiding just outside the camera's range throws a pie in slow-mo as "Blue Danube" plays in the background.
The pie is flying through the air in slow motion and after minutes of floating and rotating in the air the camera speeds up to normal and then BAAAAMM!! KABOOM! KRAPSHEEEW!!
and that strange "wah, wah, waaaah" sounds plays in the background.
Huh.
35. Jimmy - February 9, 2009 9:56 PM
Can't they just put a grate in front of the engine to stop birds from getting in?
36. Al Dracone - February 9, 2009 10:00 PM
That didn't look like a chicken.... Anyway, whatever that test was supposed to prove, it's just a complete waist of time and government money. Unless the terrorist now have chickens of mass destruction in their arsenal, who the hell cares what happens if a chicken gets stuck in the engine? And if it was a controlled explosion to see if the debris from the blades could enter the plane, again, WHO CARES? If you're on board when this happens, you're going to die anyway.
BTW, GW, thanks form making me even more afraid of flying...
37. Huh? - February 9, 2009 10:05 PM
Uh, why don't they shield the blades with a steel grid or something?
38. naas - February 9, 2009 10:06 PM
They did it because the can, and that's why we do what we do
39. Bryce - February 10, 2009 12:11 AM
For the best explanation and slow-motion view of what a Blade-Out test looks like, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcALjMJbAvU
40. Flash Perkins - February 10, 2009 1:06 AM
@37 These tests are done by the engine manufacturers, not the government and they do them for the reason everyone before you said- to make sure debris from the engine doesn't take out the rest of the plane. Engine failure doesn't equal a crash, an engine that explodes and showers the wing with shrapnel equals a crash.
41. dycantos - February 10, 2009 7:07 AM
ima test pilot btw get to watch them destroy engines all the time, but then i have to fly them! luckily im batsh!t or that might make me think twice about flying
42. indubidibly - February 11, 2009 3:11 AM
I want to fire a chicken gun at pretty much anything i can get away with...
Chicken Darts, anyone?
43. wynterfinn - February 11, 2009 5:14 AM
Here's another angle and slowmo of the same engine tect and no there is no Chicken cannon on this test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY6KnPfR5xc
44. Ptitz - February 11, 2009 3:08 PM
@7
Go study aerospace engineering. Its awesome. They show all that at the lectures: planes falling, shit exploding, pieces all over the place, awesome!