The gun used compressed air as its propellant, with a compressor storing air into an accumulator until the desired pressure was reached. To fire the gun, an operator triggered the opening of an electric quick-release valve, dumping the compressed air into the barrel. Different muzzle velocities were achieved by varying the pressure stored in the accumulator. The tests conducted with this gun were the first of their kind, and showed that the glass used in the windshields of common passenger aircraft such as the Douglas DC-3 was extremely vulnerable to bird strikes; panels were penetrated completely by a bird traveling at only . Subsequent testing showed that laminate panels made of glass interleaved with polyvinyl chloride were far more resistant. The gun was used at the High Power Laboratory until November 1943. In early 1945, it was moved to a CAA research & development location in Indianapolis, called the Indianapolis Experimental Station, where it was used to test components for various commercial aircraft manufacturers, before being retired at some point in 1947. A similar gun was independently developed by the De Havilland Aircraft Company in the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. The UK's Royal Aircraft Establishment built a chicken gun in 1961, and in 1967 the Canadian National Research Council's Division of Mechanical Engineering used the RAE's design as a basis for their "Flight Impact Simulator Facility", a pneumatic gun based next to Ottawa airport. This gun remained in frequent use until 2016, at which point it was donated to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and replaced by a pair of more modern guns. The replacements can accommodate different sized birds more easily through the use of a modular barrel. In the 1970s, Goodyear Aerospace developed a chicken gun that stored compressed air behind a ceramic diaphragm and used a cardboard sabot to center and stabilize the chicken. When fired, a needle struck the diaphragm, rupturing the seal and allowing the air to propel the projectile down the barrel. A metal ring on the muzzle stopped the sabot, but allowed the chicken to escape the barrel. The United States Air Force built the AEDC Ballistic Range S-3 at Arnold Engineering Development Complex in 1972 to test the canopies and windshields of military aircraft. Like previous chicken guns, S-3 used compressed air to launch its projectiles. The gun was later used in the development and certification of multiple US military