Many of the manufacturers testing equipment at the Smithers Winter Testing center are auto companies. Smithers Winter Testing Center
A helicopter undergoing icing tests at Sawyer Airport. U.S. Army Redstone Test Center
The Smithers test facility near Brimley has dozens of different tracks and tests for vehicles and equipment. Smithers Winter Testing Center
Ice, snow, and cold may be some people's least favorite things about the U.P., but for auto and aircraft manufacturers, they are prized assets that bring industry to the area each winter.
By mid-March, cabin fever is in full swing across the Upper Peninsula. While our long, cold winters bring plenty of opportunity for outdoor recreation and pump much-needed tourist dollars into the local economy, locals can be forgiven for imagining a world in which going outside doesn't require four layers of clothing and military-grade snow boots.
But, with winter poised to last a bit longer, skiers and snowmobilers are taking full advantage. So are a diverse array of manufacturers and parts suppliers from coast to coast--and, in some cases, beyond. They rely on the U.P.'s famously harsh winters to test their products' performance in ice, snow, and bitterly cold temperatures. At two separate locations, Sawyer Airport and the Smithers Winter Test Center in Brimley, outsiders enjoy a firsthand look at why the U.P. might be the Lower 48's best cold-weather testing environment.
Aircraft testing at Sawyer Airport
During the winter, most central U.P. residents probably think of Sawyer Airport as an escape route to warmer climes. But for the flight test team at the U.S. Army's Redstone Test Center, based out of balmy Huntsville, Alabama, it's an ideal place to test how aircraft respond to icing conditions in flight. The team comes north to various locations for winter testing operations almost every season. This year, from early February through April, an RTC team is using the airport and surrounding airspace to evaluate the AgustaWestland AW-189 helicopter's performance.
According to James A. Correia, an experimental test pilot with the U.S. Army Aviation Flight Test Directorate, Sawyer hasn't been used for winter aircraft testing since 2005, when the roughly 18-person group conducted icing tests on the Sikorsky S-92 and AgustaWestland EH-101 helicopters in 2004, and the UH-60M helicopter in 2005.
In fact, save for a brief hiatus between 2004 and 2006, when testing shifted to Sawyer, Duluth International Airport has been the upper Great Lakes region's default winter aircraft testing site since 1984. But a long-term usage agreement between the city of Duluth and a local college's aviation department means that testing may shift to Sawyer for the foreseeable future.
According to Correia, the test group already has four potential customers on board for next year, though nothing is set in stone. Depending on the weather, a testing season can last from October to May; it simply needs to be cold enough to sustain icing conditions at the altitude of the test flight.
The testing operation involves three aircraft: the craft being tested (in this case, the AW-189), a modified Chinook helicopter equipped with a Helicopter Icing Spray System (HISS), and a trailing RC-12G aircraft that measures the characteristics of the icing cloud and documents the cloud's effects on the test craft with video and still photography. During a trial, the test craft flies into an artificial water vapor cloud, measuring roughly 36 by 8 feet, generated by the Chinook's HISS.
Developed in 1973 for the purposes of military aircraft testing, HISS has been used for civil aircraft testing since 2004. The system, basically a giant water tank capable of creating a controlled spray of water droplets in sufficiently cold air, is far safer than tests conducted in natural clouds, where the rate and severity of icing can't be controlled and aircraft may not be able to drop out of the cloud fast enough to prevent a catastrophic failure. With HISS, the test craft can exit the cloud as soon as a problem arises.
"The main reason the Army developed this capability was to mitigate the risk of testing aircraft in natural icing conditions," says Correia. "Only after a test article has demonstrated that it can handle certain icing conditions safely will it attempt to repeat those conditions in a natural cloud that has been characterized by the RC-12G."
The skies above the central U.P. suddenly sound a lot more interesting.
Vehicle testing in the Soo
More than 100 miles east of Sawyer, just off M-28, lies another winter testing hotspot: the Smithers Winter Test Center, an automotive proving ground open from January 1 through March 31 (though the season can start earlier and end later, depending on conditions). Ohio-based Smithers is a rubber, plastics and polymer testing firm that works with clients in the energy, healthcare, medical, transportation, consumer products, and automotive industries.
Though confidentiality agreements prohibit Smithers from disclosing specific clients, the Brimley winter test center is used by "vehicle, tire and component manufacturers from around the world," including car companies and OEMs based in Lower Michigan, says center manager Sean Connolly. During the height of the season, the facility hosts about 200 people on a typical day.
Stretching across more than 700 acres of the Hiawatha National Forest, the Smithers Winter Test Center isn't your ordinary proving ground. Originally built in the 1940s as an auxiliary U.S. Air Force base, the Raco Army Airfield, it was closed in 1972. Later in the 1970s, the property became part of the Smithers portfolio, after an employee came across it on a snowmobiling expedition.
The Smithers Winter Test Center boasts 30 separate vehicle testing areas, including "straightaways, circle tracks, covered hills and road handling courses," says Connolly, plus about 40 acres of bare ice surfaces, and snow- or ice-covered ramps with inclines up to 20 degrees.
Away from the ramps and tracks lie durability-testing facilities, where clients can test cold-starting capabilities and general temperature tolerance. One highlight: "drive-in freezer boxes" that chill vehicles to 40 below for five hours straight, allowing manufacturers to test them out in the most brutal conditions they're likely to encounter.
The center sets itself apart by focusing on specialized winter surfaces and trials, drawing on the knowledge and experience of its roughly 40 seasonal employees (many farm locally or work in construction during the warm months) to "establish special handling courses...create custom surfaces and develop customized test protocols for our clients," says Connolly. As one of the largest cold-weather test sites in the U.S., Smithers simply has a greater variety of surfaces and a deeper well of expertise than competing facilities.
It also doesn't hurt that Smithers is just a five-hour drive (in good weather) from the nerve center of the American automotive industry--and sits amid one of the country's most picturesque wilderness areas.
"We're in close proximity to the Detroit area compared to other winter test centers," which tend to be in the Northeast, Great Plains, or Intermountain West, says Connolly. "Also, our clients love the Upper Peninsula's opportunities for snowmobiling, ice fishing and hunting during the cold months."
The ideal environment for winter testing?
The U.P. doesn't have a monopoly on cold weather, but our winters do stretch for longer--and bring more snow--than in most other regions. So the next time you're crawling along a snowy M-28 in the Soo or wondering how much longer your flight out of Sawyer is going to be delayed due to weather, think about the dozens of American and foreign manufacturers taking advantage of less-than-ideal conditions to keep their customers safe.
Brian Martucci writes about business, finance, food, drink and anything else that catches his fancy. You can find him on Twitter @Brian_Martucci
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