HAIC is a large-scale integrated project which aims at enhancing aircraft safety when flying in mixed phase and glaciated icing conditions.

In anticipation of regulation changes according to these particular icing conditions, the HAIC project will provide the necessary Acceptable Means of Compliance (numerical and test capabilities) and appropriate ice particle detection and awareness technologies to the European Aeronautics industry for use on-board commercial aircraft.

Coordinated by AIRBUS, the HAIC Consortium brings together 34 partners from 11 European countries and 5 International partners from Australia, Canada and the United States. The total budget of the project is 22.8 M€, partially funded by the European Commission under FP7-AAT-2012-3.5.1-1.Starting from August 2012, the project is expected to be completed by July 2016.

The main objectives of the HAIC project are to allow the European aeronautical industry to face challenges related to the evolution of regulation regarding mixed phase and glaciated icing conditions by characterising high ice water content environments and developing the Acceptable Means of Compliance (test facilities and numerical tools), to improve aircraft operation in such weather conditions by developing appropriate detection and awareness technologies to be fitted on aircraft and being able to alert the flight crew and thus to continuously enhance international flight safety.

In particular, within the HAIC project the characterization, optimization, enhancement and selection of the most sophisticated cloud microphysics probes will be performed in order to measure mixed phase and glaciated icing conditions during flight tests and to calibrate icing wind tunnels. Furthermore, within the HAIC project the measurement and characterization of the microphysical properties of core or near-core regions of deep convective clouds, including cloud liquid and ice water contents and particle size and shape distributions, is expected to be performed.