It took a while, and I'm still progressing. But...
- Aero-eng apprenticeship at RAE
- Aero-eng degree, joined UAS, various jobs in summer, including a brief spell in FT at Westlands, which turned my head
- Graduated, first job not very interesting, second as a very junior FTE at a certain establishment
- Got a PPL in own time and money, built up experience
- Built up experience, attended (with variable success) ETPS FTE course
- Next job, running a ground test section at the same establishment
- Left for a job in GA certification and testing, on the back of civil licences and military FT experience, started to slide into LH seat.
- Did a PhD in flight test technique development in my own time, with a reputable university aero-department.
- Picked up bits of aero-eng consultancy, including a certain British manufacturer of light twins, on whose books I'm still an FTE.
- Gravitated to a more general role, best described as "Boffin" although still with a high FT content. Currently spending a lot of my spare (ha!) time upgrading civil licences, working on basic FT technique development, and at last count have flown about 160 sorties as FTE, 150 sorties as TP, another 50 or so sorties doing routine airworthiness renewal tests, and a total of 96 types, about 2/3 of them in FT; also currently working on evaluation of reconfigurable simulators in various forms. You'll notice that the actual FT sortie rate is pretty low (and I'm considered moderately experienced), that's normal - the ratio of writing to flying has always been poor, and the ratio of general flying to FT flying not that much better for most flight testers.
All damned hard work, very satisfying, wouldn't have changed much except possibly the money which has never been poor, but never been particularly good either. (Okay, and a couple of particular incidents, but everybody has those.)
There's a story in William Thompson's book "Aerospace Flight Test Engineer" (a brilliant read by the way), about a boy who ran away from home to the circus. His dad followed him and eventually found him in the next town, shovel in hand, shovelling and knee-deep in elephant doings. "Son", said the dad "please come home": "what", said his son, looking around him "and miss all this glamour of showbusiness". Welcome to flight test!
G