Jess Lurkin wrote in :

While on this subject, it makes me wonder about the cockpit
windscreens... those smallish rectangular styles that stayed
with the Brits way too long.

What gets me to wondering is that the very old joke/story about
testing windscreens. Firing an air-cannon - dead turkey as ammo
versus firing a frozen turkey. The Brits always try to dump that
on the U.S. But these little pilot peepholes really make me think
it was the Brits that pulled that boner.

Anyone want to nail that story down? Urban legend?

Apparently urban legend: http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.asp.

I heard of a chicken cannon in use at the National Research Council in Ottawa
in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It is supposed to have been once deployed to
CFB Uplands to engage targets other than windscreens--like an unpopular
officer's car and the like. Alcohol was involved and might be said to be a
contributing factor.
http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/achievements/highlights/2007/bird_plane.html
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)