No, they’re not trying to make chicken salad (although we suppose you could do it this way?). In the following video they’re putting this Rolls Royce Trent 500 jet engine to the “bird strike test” by firing a dead fowl with a chicken gun into the speedily spiraling turbine. It shows the engineers whether or not their creation can withstand a bird flying into it while it’s carrying human passengers (the experiment saves lives).

More from the YouTube description via “AucklandRanger”:

The chickens are packed in polystyrene and fired like a Sabot round. The white stuff breaking off is not ice, just polystyrene. Anyone that thinks these are frozen chickens is a fool.

Polystyrene, in case you’re not a chemist, is a “synthetic aromatic polymer” made from a lesser “styrene.” You probably know it best in its foam form. It’s called, styrofoam.