Inquistivflyer
Have you done much research into what a test pilot actually does ? I mean "the typical day in the life of" what it is like to be test pilot.
I am not a test pilot myself but I have participated in a formal test flying program. The company I used to work for converted a large T - Prop airliner for the aerial forest fire suppression mission by fitting a large external tank to carry fire retardant plus other mods.
After a fully qualified test pilot crew did the initial flights and cleared the flight envelope I acted as an FO for the rest of the test program. This was required to gather all the data required to redo the AFM performance charts as well as confirm compliance with the performance requirements of the certification regime it was to be operated under.
It was a week of long days and frankly was pretty tedious. We spent hours and hours flying around gathering data one test point a time. After we recorded the numbers at the test point we then changing something ( eg speed/power/altitude etc) and then noted the new data. This was done for hundreds of test points.
I do quite a bit of flight instructing and my experience is non pilots arrive with a preconceived notion of where they want to take their flying career but many find other directions actually end up more appealing to them after they gain experience.
My advice is get an aeronautical engineering degree. Regardless of how life turns out for you an engineering background is a good thing to have. Go learn to fly and see where that takes you. If test flying is in your future it will find you not the other way around.....
Last edited by Big Pistons Forever; 31st Mar 2015 at 18:15.