Originally Posted by
Bing
Then how do you propose they test the icing clearance? Which was one of the major selling points over the original Hermes 450.
I think a typical Icing section in an RTS will provide a good indication of what factors are considered; some of which are universal (e.g. icing deemed to exist in certain temperature/visibility conditions), others aircraft-dependant (e.g. engine surge margins). Modelling will have given a good indication of what to expect, and one then gradually expands the opertating envelope to verify performance. But one tends not to (deliberately) get to the stage where the testing is destructive. Although things are a little blurred by today's use of the term 'drone', which is a quite different thing to people of a certain age!