Flight Test Tools in your Flight bag
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Joined: Dec 2001
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From: Philadelphia PA
Flight Test Tools in your Flight bag
Just wondered what test pilots and flight test engineers carried with them as tools of the trade- things like cloth measuring tapes, stopwatches, etc.
I'm trying to put together a more comprehensive list and would appreciate input.
Thanx
I'm trying to put together a more comprehensive list and would appreciate input.
Thanx
Moderator
Joined: Feb 2000
Aviation Qualifications: CPL
Posts: 14,480
Likes: 178
From: UK
Quiet week between courses at Mojave Shawn?
Anyhow, for what it's worth, the FT specific oddments in my flight bag:-
- Force gauge with a 1m tape measure built into it.
- Dictaphone which records on normal audio cassettes
- Magnetic pick up (plugs into dictaphone one end and tucks inside my headset at the other).
- Home made pad of blank multi-purpose test cards.
- Handheld GPS
- Digital optical tacho (although I need a new one, it broke) for checking calibration on piston-prop RPM gauges (they're usually wrong, sometimes wildly so).
- Folder full of home-made prompt cards on the basic characteristics of the various types that I fly or may fly.
- Cooper-harper flowchart.
- Sheets of graphpaper, with blank scales, cut to the size of my kneeboard.
- Roll of red PVC tape and some scissors (invaluable for as-yet unplacarded limits and reducing my mental effort in tracking them).
- A few blank copies of this
In addition some of my more regular items are selected with FT at-least partially in mind:-
- My wristwatch has a built in stopwatch and a velcro strap, so it usually flies strapped to a convenient bit of airframe in front of me.
- I've yet to find the perfect kneeboard for flight testing, as yet my favourite is the "Pooleys K3 helicopter pilots kneeboard", (bottom of
this page).
- A couple of generic "suits all types" checklists covering the main aircraft classes that I may find myself in charge of.
- Cheap air-band scanner.
- Scientific calculator.
G
Anyhow, for what it's worth, the FT specific oddments in my flight bag:-
- Force gauge with a 1m tape measure built into it.
- Dictaphone which records on normal audio cassettes
- Magnetic pick up (plugs into dictaphone one end and tucks inside my headset at the other).
- Home made pad of blank multi-purpose test cards.
- Handheld GPS
- Digital optical tacho (although I need a new one, it broke) for checking calibration on piston-prop RPM gauges (they're usually wrong, sometimes wildly so).
- Folder full of home-made prompt cards on the basic characteristics of the various types that I fly or may fly.
- Cooper-harper flowchart.
- Sheets of graphpaper, with blank scales, cut to the size of my kneeboard.
- Roll of red PVC tape and some scissors (invaluable for as-yet unplacarded limits and reducing my mental effort in tracking them).
- A few blank copies of this
In addition some of my more regular items are selected with FT at-least partially in mind:-
- My wristwatch has a built in stopwatch and a velcro strap, so it usually flies strapped to a convenient bit of airframe in front of me.
- I've yet to find the perfect kneeboard for flight testing, as yet my favourite is the "Pooleys K3 helicopter pilots kneeboard", (bottom of
this page).
- A couple of generic "suits all types" checklists covering the main aircraft classes that I may find myself in charge of.
- Cheap air-band scanner.
- Scientific calculator.
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 5th October 2004 at 14:50.
