Scientists at NASA designed and manufactured a gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields. British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the British engineers. The engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's back-rest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an arrow shot from a bow. The horrified Brits sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield and begged the US scientists for suggestions. You're going to love this...... NASA responded with a one-line memo: "Defrost the chicken."

Actually, I'm informed the author was Gerard Hoffnung. Told at the Oxford
Union, 4th December, 1958.

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In response to this someone wrote:

It was British Aerospace devised an air operated cannon for firing chickens to test aircraft windshields for bird strike.

The rest of the tale is an urban legend.

And another:

Not quite... http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.htm