Flash - New Weapon in America's Arsenal - Dubbed 'The Chicken Gun'

Senate majority leader Howard H. Baker Jr., expressed astonishment to the Senate, over recent news accounts of an Air Force "chicken gun."

It seems the gun is a converted 20-foot cannon capable of hurling dead four-pound chickens at airplanes at 700 miles per hour ... The armament is used to help find ways to reduce accidents caused by jets hitting birds.

"My first reaction to this story was one of bitterness," Baker told colleagues.

"I wonder why a 'special classified briefing' had not been set up for members of Congress on the new chicken gun and I wondered if Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger was planning one."

Baker also wondered aloud "how far along the Soviet Union is with the deployment of their 'chicken gun', and how will our Minuteman, Midgetman and Sparrow missles get along with this new weapon..."

Baker went on to wonder if the Navy might be working on it's own version of 'the chicken gun', "which would be, one assumes, a 'chicken of the sea'."

Baker congratulated the Air Force "on it's resourcefulness."

"Despite the fact that there will no doubt be those that will be skeptical of such research, I for one, see nothing more involved than a little 'fowl' play," Baker replied...