it is dangerous out there... when in the wrong conditions...

[wkitty42]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/delta-plane-forced-to-make-emergency-landing-after-flying-through-hail-storm

[legoboyvdlp]

Oh help!
And I thought cockpit windows were tested with frozen chickens.
I guess a bunch of hailstones at 500kts are worse than frozen chickens

[HJ1AN]

Oh help!
And I thought cockpit windows were tested with frozen chickens.
I guess a bunch of hailstones at 500kts are worse than frozen chickens

The windows (and engines) did the job.

Scary stuff, though.

[legoboyvdlp]

Yeah. But seriously, what must it have been like to be up there not knowing if the next moment the windshield will crack if a piece of hail hits a spot already weakened....
Scary

[HJ1AN]

Yea.

And I'm actually quite surprised that the windows to the side seem totally unscathed too. Surely the energy is deflected away, but I would expect even a glancing hit would also leave marks... so seems like the windows are far stronger than we think.. only those that took a direct hit would leave marks

[Johan G]

Whoa! I would have quite some shaky legs for a day or two after a flight like that.

By the way, look at the nose radome right beneath the banner.

[gsagostinho]

Well, have you guys seen how the nose was looking?!?!



Really scary stuff....

[simbambim]

And I thought cockpit windows were tested with frozen chickens.

Are you sure they're frozen? I always thought that was from an anecdote.

[massima]

I'm so scared looking at those photos . Several years ago i watched a documentary and chickens weren't frozen, they fired chickens with a cannon against windshield.

[legoboyvdlp]

Its on mythbusters, I think they passed it. They definetly shoot chickens from a cannon. Not sure about the frozen. I hope so.

[Martien van der P.]

Found this video:

[legoboyvdlp]

Busted.... hmmmm

[simbambim]

Apparently they overturned it later.

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2004/06/retu ... sters.html

[MIG29pilot]

Why chicken?


Gosh, imagine what people will see when they search my posts--"Why chicken?"!

[wkitty42]

@mig29pilot: the test was for birds flying into the craft's vulnerable points...

@everyone else, i recently found out that the hailstones were reported to be softball sized... that's the size of a small to medium grapefruit... so larger than your fist and solid ice and impacting the craft at what? 400 to 500 knots? yeah, that's some severe kinetic energy... as for missing the side glass, i suspect that there were come glancing blows but not direct enough to cause damage more than maybe some scratches... there was another picture also showing a shot out of a wing window but i'm not sure what damage it was trying to show us... i'm really really surprised that the engines weren't damaged by softball sized solid ice chunks going into their intakes!