Test pilot

A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.[2]

For the cocktail, see Test Pilot (cocktail).
For the film, see Test Pilot (film).
Léon Lemartin, the world's first professional test pilot,[1] under contract to Louis Blériot in c. 1910
Jimmy Doolittle in 1928 with his Curtiss R3C-2, around the time he pioneered blind flying
Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1, first test pilot to break the sound barrier at Mach 1 in 1947
Neil Armstrong and the North American X-15 after a research test flight in 1960

History

Test flying as a systematic activity started during the First World War, at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) in the United Kingdom. An "Experimental Flight" was formed at the Central Flying School. During the 1920s, test flying was further developed by the RAE in the UK, and by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in the United States. In the 1950s, NACA was transformed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. During these years, as work was done into aircraft stability and handling qualities, test flying evolved towards a more qualitative scientific profession. In the 1950s, test pilots were being killed at the rate of about one a week, but the risks have shrunk to a fraction of that because of the maturation of aircraft technology, better ground-testing and simulation of aircraft performance, fly-by-wire technology and, lately, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to test experimental aircraft features. Still, piloting experimental aircraft remains more dangerous than most other types of flying.

At the insistence of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first American astronauts, the Mercury Seven, were all military test pilots, as were some of the later astronauts.

The world's oldest test pilot school is what is now called the Empire Test Pilots' School (motto "Learn to Test – Test to Learn"), at RAF Boscombe Down in the UK. There are a number of similar establishments over the world. In America, the United States Air Force Test Pilot School is located at Edwards Air Force Base, the United States Naval Test Pilot School is located at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland and EPNER (Ecole du Personnel Navigant d'Essai et de Reception – "School for flight test and acceptance personnel"), the French test pilot school, is located in Istres, France. There are only two civilian schools; the International Test Pilots School in London, Ontario, and the National Test Pilot School, a not-for-profit educational institute is in Mojave, California. In Russia, there is a Russian aviation industry Fedotov Test Pilot School (founded 1947)[3] located in Zhukovsky within the Gromov Flight Research Institute.

Qualifications
  • Understand a test plan
  • Stick to a test plan by flying a plane in a highly specific way
  • Carefully document the results of each test
  • Have an excellent feel for the aircraft and sense exactly how it is behaving oddly if it is doing so
  • Solve problems quickly if anything goes wrong with the aircraft during a test
  • Cope with many different things going wrong at once
  • Effectively communicate flight test observations to engineers and relate engineering results to the pilot community, thus bridging the gap between those who design and build aircraft with those who employ the aircraft to accomplish a mission
  • Have an excellent knowledge of aeronautical engineering to understand how and why planes are tested.
  • Be above-average pilots with excellent analytical skills and the ability to fly accurately while they follow a flight plan.

Test pilots can be experimental and engineering test pilots (investigating the characteristics of new types of aircraft during development) or production test pilots (the more mundane role of confirming the characteristics of new aircraft as they come off the production line). Many test pilots would perform both roles during their careers. Modern test pilots often receive formal training from highly-selective military test pilot schools, but other test pilots receive training and experience from civilian institutions and/or manufacturers' test pilot development programs (see list of test pilot schools).

Notable test pilots (partial list)

See also

References

Notes
  1. Léon Lemartin (Ai. 1899)
  2. Stinton, Darrol. Flying Qualities and Flight Testing of the Airplane. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., 1996, p. 265
  3. Знаменская, Наталья, ed. (2002). ШЛИ со временем [ShLI in Time] (in Russian) (2 ed.). Жуковский: ООО "Редакция газеты "Жуковские вести". p. 400.

Bibliography
  • Hallion, Richard P.Test Pilots: Frontiersmen of Flight. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0874745498
  • Warsitz, Lutz: THE FIRST JET PILOT – The Story of German Test Pilot Erich Warsitz, Pen and Sword Books Ltd., England, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84415-818-8
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