A small but important clarification I think
Originally Posted by
safetypee
Previous types did not have/use AOA
.. as an input to FBW control laws.
AOA sensors to drive various functions has been around for ages, and in some cases it's a safety-critical function, equally as much as for FBW. (I'm thinking any pusher-protected aircraft here, for example). So at least some aircraft have been "watching" the performance of AOA vanes for quite some time.
But it
is odd that we seem to be getting more "issues" with novel forms of icing in the relatively recent past. At least some people are suggesting that the only logical explanation is that it's a change in the atmosphere of some kind - global warming? pollution? aircraft flying in different parts of the atmosphere more often (either vertically or geographically)
I think that you can safely assume that there are indeed people asking WHY - everyone building sensors, and everyone spec-ing them, is asking themselves what they have to do extra now that they didn't do before. There are already new regulations, and more on the way. but since we still dont understand all the physics behind this, it's a somewhat empirical reaction - better than nothing, and it should help, but how do we know it's enough?