Flying Chickens

This is allegedly a true story. Engineers at a major aerospace company were instructed to test the effects of bird-strikes (notably geese) on the windshields of airliners and military jets. To simulate the effect of a goose colliding with an aircraft travelling at high speed, the test engineers built a powerful gun, with which they fired dead chickens at the windshields. The simulations using the gun and the dead chickens worked extremely effectively, happily proving the suitability of the windshields, and several articles about the project appeared in the testing industry press.

It so happened that another test laboratory in a different part of the world was involved in assessing bird-strikes - in this case on the windshields and drivers' cabs of new very high speed trains. The train test engineers had read about the pioneering test developed by the aerospace team, and so they approached them to ask for specifications of the gun and the testing methods. The aerospace engineers duly gave them details, and the train engineers set about building their own simulation.

The simulated bird-strike tests on the train windshields and cabs produced shocking results. The supposed state-of-the-art shatter-proof high speed train windshields offered little resistance to the high-speed chickens; in fact every single windshield that was submitted for testing was smashed to pieces, along with a number of train cabs and much of the test booth itself.

The horrified train engineers were concerned that the new high speed trains required a safety technology that was beyond their experience, so they contacted the aerospace team for advice and suggestions, sending them an extensive report of the tests and failures.

The brief reply came back from the aero-engineers: "You need to defrost the chickens...."

Tickle Me Elmo Story

This allegedly took place in a factory in the USA which manufactured the 'Tickle Me Elmo' toys, (a children's plush cuddly toy which laughs when tickled under the arm). The legend has is it that a new employee was hired at the Tickle Me Elmo factory and she duly reported for her first day's induction training, prior to being allocated a job on the production line.

At 08:45 the next day the personnel manager received a visit from an excited assembly line foreman who was not best pleased about the performance of the new recruit. The foreman explained that she was far too slow, and that she was causing the entire line to back-up, delaying the whole production schedule. The personnel manager asked to see what was happening, so both men proceeded to the factory floor.

On arrival they saw that the line was indeed badly backed-up - there were hundreds of Tickle Me Elmos strewn all over the factory floor, and they were still piling up. Virtually buried in a mountain of toys sat the new employee earnestly focused on her work. She had a roll of red plush fabric and a bag of marbles. The two men watched amazed as she cut a little piece of fabric, wrapped it around a pair of marbles and carefully began sewing the little package between Elmo's legs.

The personnel manager began to laugh, and it was some while before he could compose himself, at which he approached the trainee. "I'm sorry," he said to her, not able to disguise his amusement, "But I think you misunderstood the instructions I gave you yesterday.... Your job is to give Elmo two test tickles."