Ice buildup on aerodynamic surfaces and aircraft engines is the most serious weather hazard effecting aircraft performance and safety.  Several current strategies to eliminate or reduce ice buildup such as chemical or thermal deicing cause tremendous loss in flight delays and cancellations. Under extreme circumstances these solutions may not be probable due to time constraints or location and may compromise or limit flight mission capabilities. A more practical and economical choice for aircraft manufactures is to use a material or apply a coating that reduces ice adhesion to the surface. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of these types of materials, the Department of the Army, Engineer Research and Development Center, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, NH, U.S., has designed a test to measure the adhesion strength of ice to surfaces. Under the direction of Pratt & Whitney several different commercially available ice-phobic coatings and materials were tested and compared, including the silicone based ice-phobic coating R-2180. The results showed that several of these materials perform better than the industry standard ice-phobic material, Teflon^®, while R-2180 was the most favorable of all the coatings tested. In addition R-2180 continued to perform better than Teflon^® after simulated exposure to extreme environmental conditions, including physical wear, thermal cycling, humidity cycling, and salt spray.  Combined with specular gloss readings and contact angle measurements used to evaluate the smoothness of the silicone based coating, ice adhesion testing reveals that although ice-phobic materials do not eliminate ice formation under static conditions, the smooth surface creates a complex interaction with the ice dramatically reducing the energy required to remove ice buildup.