Is there a future in rotary-wing flight testing?
 

I would appreciate any information regarding the future of rotary-wing production/experimental flight testing, particularly in the civilian sector. Is military experience a prerequisite? I have substantial flight time in numerous single and multiengine helicopters, as well as a B.S. in Aviation Science. How else can I prepare in order to become competitive? What's the best path for someone in my situation? My apologies to genghis for yet another of these questions. Thanks for your time.

I'm sure Genghis will refer you to the various threads about test pilot training.
The answer, I hope, is yes!
The golden age of many companies producing endless prototypes competing to meet military and civil specifications is long gone. Sadly. Most of us earn our living from development of existing platforms and a bit of research.
In the helicopter world there's lots of exciting systems work, primarily militarily driven, to develop day/night and all weather operations, for example.
It has to be said that companies generally prefer their tps to have come from the military background so that they have the necessary 'role experience' to encompass a broad spectrum of flight test activities. It is 'role relation' that is the crux of the tps job in declaring the suitability of an aircraft or system for its purpose, and he (/she!) must have credible role experience to do this.
Joining a smaller company as a FTE (with your aero eng background) might enable you to get a foot in the door and eventually transfer these skills to the pilot's seat. Our good friend Genghis will attest to this!

There was I trying to stay out of it on the grounds that I know very little about helicopter testing, and I get mentioned 3 times in two posts! Folks, I worked for Westlands very briefly about 14 years ago, and since then have a grand total of 3 hours in helicopters, some of that being pulled out of the sea + helping run one ground trial on a Lynx. Whilst it's true that I do know about working in small aviation companies, helicopters you'll have to ask somebody else I'm afraid.

I'm sure you've already looked at the FAQ post, other than that - ask Shawn !

Best of luck,

G

ghostfish1
Depends on what country you're in, and who you know, and what you want to do - the field is pretty wide, even having said experimental / production flight testing.
There are some R&D facilities in many countries that might welcome civil experience as being more valuable than you might imagine. A disciplined approach to describing your flying background is definitely needed- anything in particular that you have developed, written, etc. to move the industry forward?
Otherwise, your ability to get in depends on the country you are in. Most manufacturers require TP experience, a very large hurdle, but some will take you with an engineering or science degree and develop you from there.
Contact me off-line if you want to talk about it some more.

At the moment i think, the civ possibilities are small. We in the rotary wing industries are in a concentrating process in a down turning market. Money and new developments are decreasing. We have nearly enough FTE's and TP's due to the concentration. Most work in process is military, therefore we need military experienced and from the military customer accepted personal. Nearly all TP's coming from military, working together with the industry on the mil projects and developments during their military time and after leaving the mil they stay.
That's the situation in the big industry and the smaller user, like institutes, universities and smaller development companies, don't have the money to have or train up own personal. They use the staff from the bigger companies and military direct.