Becoming a Test Pilot

[ICT_SLB]

Iflier et al,
Just to give you an idea of the timeline and what's required for a typical flight test mission.
About 6 months before: Certification Plan including test requirements written by DER/DAD and sent to Authority for review & comment.
At least one month before: Test Procedure written by System Engineer (often preceded by Rig testing but that's another story). Reviewed & signed off by DER/DAD, FTE (and TP or Safety Officer if potentially hazardous).
At least two weeks before: Flight Test Plan written by FTE including Hazard Analysis/Risk Mitigation if needed. Signed off as Test Procedure.
Day of Test:
Aircraft Status Briefing by Aircraft Controller/Maintenance Lead followed by Flight (Test Plan) briefing by FTE. This attended by PIC, Co-Pilot, FTE(s), System Engineers, Vendor Representatives plus, if required, ground or telemetry room staff - can last up to two hours.
Actual flight (three - four hours)
Debrief - snags for Maintenance, outline of flight followed by detailed review of each test point (if required) with Q & A from engineers.
Post-Flight (immediate to two weeks after)
Formal Flight Log & Report including relevant Aircraft Configuration written up & filed by FTE (may also require pilot input if handling or flight qualities related).
Analysis of recorded data and assessment of test success or failure by engineer or vendor rep. If failure, engineers will need to ascertain what exactly caused the problem and come up with a fix, which will need to be retested.
Test Report written by system engineer or vendor. This is then reviewed by DER/DAD and full report or summary transmitted to Certification Authority.

This timeline is for a Part 25 aircraft aka "heavy iron" but from it you can see that there's probably a minimum of 20 hours of effort before and after one hour of actual flight - and this doesn't include the maintenance activity & inspections to keep the aircraft operating safely. The Safety Review process will probably add many more hours if potentially hazardous flying involving stalls, envelope expansion or specialist maneuvers like Low Visibility Takeoffs or Autoland are involved. Most manufacturers will also rehearse such flying in a simulator. As i said before, Flight Test is a team sport (and it's a big team).