SARMC
Thanks for your post and your point taken.
Lets see now. The tragedies of the DC 8 at Auckland years ago and the RAAF B707 crash were avoidable IMHO. These exercises could have been carried out in a simulator. Playing around in aircraft I call it, as if you look for trouble you quite often find it. A test pilot is trained and is current to look for trouble, line pilots regardless of experience are trained to stay out of trouble.
Yes I have approval to carry out C of A air tests on "high performance" aircraft but don't like doing it any air test and will avoid it if possible. Why? I am not a graduate of the ETPS or the equivalents. It takes millions of dollars to train a test pilot, who will have an engineering degree at the very least, to do the job with any degree of safety.
The point I am trying to make is that I think some of this unnecessary flying is costing more lives than it is designed to save. If it aint broke don't fix it!