Yes, I mentioned I did just that to try it out. Took an extra 20 minutes or so, but it did work fine.
Just follow Apple's tutorial on it. It works perfect, and it's absolutely simple to set up.
Good luck.
Well not so simple is my experience!
My drive was also crashed so could not make a carbon copy.
At first when I installed the new SSD i ran the remote install of Leopard.
Then I went to disk utility but the ssd was not recognized.
So I decided to put the ssd in the external housing and I connected via USB to my MBA, ran remote install, and it was recognized so I formatted it (extended journaled) and partitioned it with GIUD selected.
Then I installed it again in my MBA, ran installation, disk utility but.... nothing!
So it is seen when on usb but not when inside. Installation of all cables etc looks totally fine. What to do???
Any suggestions? I'm pretty hopeless :-((