ETPS's Future?

[Shawn Coyle]

Just wondered, since this is a rumour network, what's the scuttlebut about the future of ETPS under the budget cuts?

[billynospares]

ETPS is now run by qinetiq for the MOD and next years course is one of the biggest for years due to an influx of foreign students so i would say the future looks pretty good :ok:

[Stitchbitch]

Any updates on ETPS future, QQ/ETPS seem to be doing well at the moment, what does the long term future look like? If there's a massive uptake of UAVs/UAS/Etc is there still a need for a big test pilot school?

[Genghis the Engineer]

I've not had anything to do with ETPS for some years, but from the outside I'd say that they have a healthy future, but change is inevitable.

UAVs still need testing - and all of the TPS have by now introduced courses for UAV T&E people (I'm nervous of calling them TPs, in my mind they're closer to FTEs, but whatever you call them, they're needed, need training, and a TPS is an obvious place to train them).

ETPS, like at-least one other school (NTPS who I seem to keep bumping into around the world) and probably all of them, has started to deliver many short courses.

Cost drivers are an ongoing massive issue for everybody these days, and I suspect that they'll eventually admit that basic flight test techniques do not need teaching on a fast jet. A trivial change in theory, but one if it gets made will be done against massive resistance.

They probably also will also always have a UK role as a sort of "FT CFS" assisting other military test flying bodies in maintaining standards and best practice, although perhaps need as a body to engage with the rest of the test flying community more than at present to ensure that. At present you don't see a lot of ETPS working level people at SFTE/SETP/AGARD/RAeS/FTSW/etc. meetings to the extent you do from other equivalent organisations and that's in my opinion to the UK's detrement - they also publish very few technical papers around the bazaars (again compared to other equivalent organisations - I can't remember when I last saw a paper out of BDN in either Cockpit or Aeronautical Journal).

No, I don't think ETPS should be worried about being culled, it just also needs to avoid worrying too much about being forced to change and just roll with the blows.

G

[Rob Erdos]

This is my first post on PPRune, but I couldn't help responding to this...

ETPS is a client in my "day job" (hint: 3 letters, owns a big wind tunnel at CYOW...). They have conducted training courses with us for the last, oh, 15 years or so, and we have no reason to think that this will change. In fact, we have discussed areas where the scope of the training might increase.

Certainly there have been challenges with the change of management from MOD to QinetiQ, but ETPS seems to be steady at the helm, and continues to provide the same service to the flight test community that they have for the last 70 years.

Rob
Ottawa