Airbedane - thanks for the correction (and of-course the 5th is NTPS which is non-military but just as capable of producing good TPs), and I agree with you on all but one point....
IMHO, the suggestion of formal TP or FTE licensing is an excellent one; my disagreement is that TPS graduation should be the sole route to recognise a competent practitioner. For that matter, there are areas, such as civil compliance checklists and flying limitations development that are only touched on by the military schools but are fundamental to civil test flying - so one might make a case for more than TPS graduation alone in order to become a licensed TP - notwithstanding that any rational system should "fasttrack" graduates of recognised TP schools, or I'd suggest Registered Engineers (pick national qualification system of your choice) who got their qualification through FT work.
But, who to do the licensing? It really should be separate to individual aircrew licenses, and ideally recognisable internationally since this is inevitably a business that tends to cross national borders constantly.
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 10th Oct 2003 at 07:23.