In the process of looking for fan blade off videos I ran across this video that shows the full litany of tests that a GE engine goes through (not sure if this is really all the tests, but there are a lot of them). Here’s the list from the video: Icing certification, hailstorm testing (3/4 ton of hail in 30 seconds), water testing (4.5 tons per minute), 5.5lb bird ingestion, Mojave desert flight, FAA block test/triple redline operation (which seems to be about running the engine as hard as possible) and blade off. Here’s the full four minutes of testing (no clue when this video is actually from).
Update (3/19/09): GE asked us to take down this video since it was apparently a proprietary thing that was never supposed to make it on to YouTube. In exchange they’ve sent us a bunch of footage for us to digitize and post (which we’ll be doing shortly). Sorry about that.
Update (3/30/09): Here’s the new video.