Jet Engine Design and FOD
Modern jet engines suffer major damage due to even small birds being sucked into the engine. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) requires that all engine types pass a test which includes firing a fresh chicken (dead, but not frozen) into a running jet engine from a small cannon. The engine does not have to remain functional after the test, but it must not cause significant damage to the rest of the aircraft. Thus, if the bird strike causes it to "throw a blade" (break apart in a way where parts fly off at high speed), doing so must not cause loss of the aircraft. A chicken gun is used to perform experiments on bird strikes.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Object Damage
Famous quotes containing the words jet, engine and/or design:
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Invincible modes of the sea, hearing:
Be a man my son by God.
He turned again
To the purring jet yellowing the murder story,
Deaf to the pathos circling in the air.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is perfect, the engineer is nobody. Every new step in improving the engine restricts one more act of the engineer,—unteaches him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”
—Marilyn French (20th century)