The test center is the second-largest of its kind in the world. (The largest is McKinley Climatic Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.) “But you’d never see a plane [flying] like that,” says Paul Lagace, an aerospace engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of the plane’s ice-swathed exterior. Even when a fighter streaks by at chilly high altitudes, air friction against the craft keeps the surface significantly warmer than the air around it, he explains. Planes are most likely to acquire ice buildup while still on the tarmac.
