In-flight Testing

One of the most challenging phases is the natural icing flight campaign to gain certification for flight into known-icing. Aircraft manufacturers fly their new aircraft and/or systems into clouds, targeting specific combinations of temperature, liquid water content and droplets’ size. Such conditions can be rather elusive and the time, energy and costs involved in finding, staying within, and documenting them, can be quite significant.

NTI is pleased to team up with Ben BERNSTEIN and Leading Edge Atmospherics (LEA) renown for making this rather daunting task more simple, efficient and safe. LEA has more than a decade of experience guiding a wide variety of aircraft safely into (and out of) icing conditions over the United States, Canada and Europe. These aircraft have included helicopters, small through large turboprops, business jets and large jets.

NTI-LEA work closely with pilots and flight test engineers to get the icing conditions that they need for certification. We examine historical weather data to determine optimal locations for the operations base to help maximize the opportunity to find the desired conditions. Working with the program, we put the icing weather into pilot terms, helping customers to plan flight routes effectively to make the most of sampling opportunities, and to determine critical escape routes that may be needed to maintain safety. 

Download the flyer.