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Fascinating article. I had a chuckle at this excerpt: >The Malaysian investigators did look into whether the cargo could have started a fire, noting that it co
by dml2135 4y ago
Fascinating article. I had a chuckle at this excerpt:
>The Malaysian investigators did look into whether the cargo could have started a fire, noting that it consisted mainly of ripe mangosteen fruits along with a small number of lithium batteries. Extensive attempts by the investigators to get mangosteen juice to react with the batteries and trigger a fire were unsuccessful.
I'm sure plenty of people here have spent time wracking their brain on a hard problem and the image of a bunch of transportation investigators dousing batteries with juice in a late-night fit of desperation really gets me.
- interestica 4y agoInvestigations have some weird bits. I've always wondered if there's a certain title for the person who prepares the chickens for the 'chicken gun' in airplane testing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_gun
- RobRivera 4y agoOperational Testing Lead Quality Assurance Tester El Pollo Hermano
- chanandler_bong 4y agoMr. Fring would like to see you in his office. Now.
- TylerE 4y agoLess fun than Operational Testing Lead Quality Assurance Tester Los Pollo Hermanos
- duxup 4y agoExcuse me sir, it is: SENIOR OTL-QA-TEPH
- vidanay 4y agoSounds like a Mayan diety.
- selimthegrim 4y agoChac Mool was out on other business along with Benedict Arnold.
- noisy_boy 4y agoOr a Jedi master.
- zitterbewegung 4y agoBird Hit QA engineer
- DavidNielsen 4y agoBird Bash QA engineering.
- wyager 4y agoI got to take a tour of SWRI when I was younger, and they have one of these chicken guns in one of their testing facilities. They also have a locker full of machine guns for testing bullet resistance of vehicles etc.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoAfter the joke fiasco, and since it's a government job, i'm sure there is someone employed there to thaw them first :D
- interestica 4y agoWhat joke? was it related to https://cdc.gov/chikungunya https://cdc.gov/chikungunya
- Daneel_ 4y agoI believe they're talking about this one: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/catapoultry/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/catapoultry/
- D-Coder 4y agoExcellent, thank you! Interesting that in at least one situation, the Air Force really did use frozen chickens to be extra-sure of the canopy durability.
- lathiat 4y agoAn iconic Mythbusters episode also :) They made an air cannon to fire frozen chickens into a plane.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoYep, this one... "thaw it first" :))
- themodelplumber 4y ago[flagged]
- mwint 4y agoI love how this reads completely differently after the final sentence implies the birds are still alive.
- cm2187 4y agoTo be honest being swallowed into a jet engine is as quick of a death as you can get
- krisoft 4y agoSometimes. Probably most of the time. But not always. Petty Officer JD Bridges on a US Navy aircraft carrier got sucked into the intake of a fighter jet. Somehow his body got wedged in such a way that he did not go through the engine and managed to climb out a few seconds later. Video of the incident in question, also an interview with him the next day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF3Iz7b95-8&t=46s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF3Iz7b95-8&t=46s
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoAs I recall, along with getting somewhat wedged, his helmet come off and was digested by the engine. Which is one rapid method of equalising pressure at the intake and exhaust.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoSee, wear your helmet.
- luisapic 4y ago[dead]
- 4y ago
- thriftwy 4y agoThis story has been going around the world for 50 years, and in different variations. According to some sources, the first time it appeared in a publication in USA in 1958, in the professional magazine "Meat and Game" of the California Associations of Game Producers (proven fact). The authenticity of the story, however, is questionable. The FAA has at its disposal a unique device for measuring the strength of aircraft windshields, in case of a collision with birds at high speed (which happens not so rarely). This device is a powerful pneumatic cannon that shoots a chicken carcass into the windshield of an airplane at a speed approaching the cruising speed of a civilian aircraft (for jet aircraft, this is approx. 800 km/h, for piston engines in the 1950s this figure was probably smaller, maybe 400-500 km/h). According to the theory, if the glass can withstand a collision with a chicken at such a speed, then it should all the more withstand a real collision with a bird in flight. A certain British engineering company developing high-speed trains borrowed this gun from the FAA to test the strength of the windshield of its a new high-speed train. The cannon was brought to England, installed at the landfill, loaded with a chicken carcass and fired at the prototype train. The result exceeded all expectations: the chicken broke through the glass, broke the back of the driver's seat and got stuck in the back wall of the car. The British sent test results to FAA and asked them if they had done everything correctly and if the gun was hitting too hard. After studying the description and consequences of the test, the answer was sent by telegram immediately: "Next time, defrost the chicken."
- Symbiote 4y agoI realise it's a joke, but I think a high speed train can probably withstand a frozen chicken at speed. They would need some defence against vandals throwing rocks, and weight isn't a problem. This paper shows test impacts of a 1kg steel hemisphere, which damage the windscreen but don't shatter it. http://koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201336447756524.page http://koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201336447756524.page
- wlonkly 4y agoAssume a hemispherical chicken...
- 4y ago
- jvm___ 4y agoAn employee on the Canadian satire show This hour has 22 minutes
- jdougan 4y agoI thought it was Royal Canadian Air Farce that did the chicken cannon?
- _0w8t 4y agoThose guns are not cheap. I once worked in a startup that wanted to put thermal cameras on commercial planes to measure volcanic ash concentrations. The cameras had to be behind a special glass that is transparent for thermal radiation. But as the glass size exceeded certain size, it required to certify against bird strikes. It turned out the cost of the certification was like 500K euros.
- easytiger 4y agoFor engines presumably the major cost is dismantling and inspecting the engine under test
- hasmanean 4y agoIf that special glass is quartz, it should be stronger than regular glass.
- _0w8t 4y agoIt was germanium glass if I remember correctly. It was very essential that all thermal radiation passed through it.
- reacweb 4y agoThe person who bought the chickens told me that battery chickens were not suitable because the bones were too soft. Farm chickens were needed. The farmer never knew what the chickens were for.
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoDamn, we throw chickens in engines that are healthier than the ones most people eat.
- interestica 4y agoMaybe they can like...catch the exit material and fry it up.
- jszymborski 4y agoObscure fact: Canada had a show called Royal Canadian Air Farce where, during their year-end special, they'd launch a "Chicken Cannon" at cut-outs of that years news makers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLJ5q3-XJtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLJ5q3-XJtQ
- interestica 4y agoColonel is an Air Force military rank. Just saying.
- themitigating 4y agoI have no flying experience but if there was a fire in the cargo hold wouldn't the crew at least send a message? I thought this flight veered off the flight path before disappearing
- kaelinl 4y agoYes, my understanding (as purely a bystander) is that even the most aggressive fires in the past have allowed time for a mayday. See for example UPS flight 6, with a huge uncontrolled lithium battery fire: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6 In general, onboard fires are one of the most dangerous scenarios in-flight, as I understand it. Crews are trained extensively for it. I think this is, in part, what the analysis in the article concludes — even a fire would have to cause a very specific, never-before-seen combination of failures to lead to the outcomes observed from the outside.
- Merad 4y agoThey should, but there have certainly been aircraft disasters where the pilots didn't exactly do what they were supposed to do.
- joshspankit 4y agoI also imagine that the first attempt was behind some sort of explosion-proof wall because It Just Might(tm).
- EricE 4y agoStrikes me as a desperate attempt to save face and explain away the most plausible explanation - that one of their pilots committed an atrocity.
- jjeaff 4y agoConsidering lithium batteries have been known to combust in an impressive firestorm, it definitely seems worth trying to rule out. But the fruit being involved does seem implausible.
- eternalban 4y ago> it definitely seems worth trying to rule out. But the fruit being involved does seem implausible. The other day learned about farmers drying hay before stacking it, because (who would even imagine this?) it turns out stacks of hay can catch fire if there is too much moister in them, due to a biological chemical reaction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_combustion#Hay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_combustion#Hay
- madaxe_again 4y ago[flagged]
- IgorPartola 4y agoIt’s not that weird. Lithium (ion) batteries can catch on fire if submerged in water. Can juice do it is a legitimate question.
- joecool1029 4y agoNo, not ion. Lithium *metal* batteries can catch fire when submerged in water. Lithium ion batteries have very little lithium and lots of water is usually the best method to extinguish larger fires. More on safety including information on aircraft fire suppression systems on the more common lithium ion cells: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-304a-safety-concerns-with-li-ion https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-304a-safety-concern...
- IgorPartola 4y agoAh that’s the one. Thanks for the correction.