Hi doubleu-anker,
The aircraft had just undergone reburbishment in anticipation of it's return to Air New Zealand. This refurbishment included repainting the exterior and refitting the interior to Air NZ's requirements. Also at that time the aircraft was serviced. In these situations it is not unusual for a flight check to be undertaken after all the work has been completed. In this case, as the people on board consisted of German pilots and Air NZ staff including a senior pilot, engineers and a NZ CAA inspector, this could also have been a handover/acceptance flight as the aircraft was due to be returned to Air NZ later in the week.
This is not a "test flight" in the normal context of that phrase. As far as I am aware, "Test flight" is the term normally used when testing a new aircraft type by the manufacturer before it is put into full production. As such, this flight did not require "test pilots". Usually this type of flight check is performed by senior pilots and is to check that the aircraft systems are operating normally after all the work that had been performed. The presence of the various Air NZ and NZ CAA staff would support this conjecture.
Your comment "It is time playing around or training in aircraft was stopped and done in the simulator." confuses me.
This flight was neither a training flight nor were they playing around. Because of the high costs associated with these types of aircraft the majority of large aircraft flight training is already done in simulators. And for the same reason, cost, no "playing around" is tolerated by the operators.
Of course some pilot conversion training is done in the "real" aircraft. I'm sure you would not like to board an aircraft which was to be flown by pilots who had never actually flown the real aircraft before.
Regards
Stephen
Last edited by SARMC; 30th Nov 2008 at 21:52.
Reason: Update and minor corrections