As one who has taught at three different test pilot schools, worked for a manufacturer (briefly) and also for a civil certification authority, and been on the membership committee for Society of Experimental Test Pilots, perhaps I can add a few words.
The whole area of flight testing is so vast, and has so many components to it that it would be impossible to set up criteria that would satisfy every one.
More than 50% of the flight testing that is being done now revolves around avionics and displays, for example. How do you set standards for what is going to be taught for this subject? Do you cover this at the expense of performance?
It has been modestly predicted that even a very cursory look at all the areas of certification would take a minimum of 18 months, if not two years at a flight test school. No-one could afford to have an experienced pilot on their staff away for that long, nor afford the cost of the course.
Like Genghis and Rick, I have seen pilots and engineers who are not graduates of formal training who run circles around those who have attended Test Pilot Schools, just as I have seen those who are self-taught who shouldn't be allowed to drive a car without adult supervision.
I wish there was some way to give some structure and form to the whole process, but it would be nearly impossible given the number of different interests involved.

Right then, got it:

1) Let the qualified and certified TPs/FTEs do the tricky bits (envelope expansion, handling characteristics, new and difficult stuff) and be accredited by virtue of them having completed a TP/FTE course.

2) Let the unqualified and uncertified pilots and engineers do the systems/avionics work, but understand they're not TPs/FTEs because they haven't completed a relevant course.

3) Let employers decide who to employ based on their professional qualifications and courses completed, as well as their abilities. I agree there must have been some chimps who passed the 'official' courses, and I imagine there must be some good guys who could pass if they had the funds/backing to get through. But the fact remains, any idiot could take 17 years to eventually get his PPL, attend and fail an 'official' course, and still call themselves a TP/FTE because there is no formal accreditation. Sounds daft and dangerous to me. Bring on proper accreditation, even if it is focussed (in the same way a doctor/lawyer specialises in a certain field rather than trying to do everything).

4) My nan's got her BAE interview next tuesday. Any tips?:}

Around 1990-1991 there was discussion in, I think, the RAeS about licensing TPs. Several test pilot prominente were involved, and I remember a slightly heated exchange on board the boat on which the cocktail party of the '91 SETP European symposium was held.

The end result is no licensing/accreditation system to embrace all test people. What do they say is the collective noun - a Disagreement of Test Pilots?

Rich, you say you would not want those who are not test pilots to read this thread and form the conclusion that all military TPS graduates are omniscient, omnipotent gods capable of every feat possible in aviation.

Well nor would I - indeed nothing could be further from the truth, which was why I said they would need help.

But what they do not need is further education about the mindset that is required to test. That is what they get at tps - as Lomcevac has said.

My post was never intended to take issue with what you or Lomcevak have written concerning this subject. My comment concerning TPS graduates as omniscient, omnipotent gods was only hyperbole used to emphasize my argument concerning the definitions of the terms 'help and training'.

I am perhaps more sensitive to the use of the terms 'help and training' than most. When I argue for a training budget, senior managers often ask why a TPS graduate pilot should need additional training to become a fully qualified member of our flight test team. In my corporate world, 'help' is unfunded, 'training' is funded.

This was a generic point, I had no specific individual in mind.


So you'd sack, for example most of the flight test team at Scaled, or for that matter one poster above to my knowledge is / has been CTP for several very well respected organisations, published widely on test flying practice, yet not attended TPS. I'm pretty certain you'd also be sacking virtually all of the FTEs and TPs in the British, American, French, Australian, Czech light aircraft industries that I'm reasonably familiar with. Oh yes, and the majority of FTEs at BAE(S), although having worked with a few of them, I didn't notice a particular lack of competence - and much of the rest of the world seems very happy to buy their aeroplanes.

Yes, TPs and FTEs have got to be competent - no debate. But surely it's the overseeing company and authority that should determine that, not graduation from a particular school, nor oversight from (for example) ETPS which is without doubt an incredibly competent organisation but inevitably has teaching staff drawn almost exclusively from a particular parish: UK and US military testing. (And whose syllabus, as various people have said, can't possibly encompass every area of flight test in any reasonable time).

G

To keep the personal or personnel side out of this - this attitude seems terribly old-fashioned and just doesn't square with the requirements of current test programs. With FBW or even conventional + AP systems where the usual flight sequence is "Gear Up, Flaps Up, Engage AP", it's becoming less & less clear where the general flight qualities end & the "systems" begin. The corollary to this is that complex systems often require more specialist knowledge not always found in conventionally-trained FTEs or even TPs.
Maybe that's why most organizations I know use a team approach where the certification is carried out by TPs, FTEs, engineers & specialists working together using rigs, simulators and aircraft.

Genghis

Without formal accreditation what officially separates the Nurses from the Doctors, and the Secretaries from the Solicitors?

I have no doubt there are some very highly-qualified and competent pilots and engineers that haven't completed a TP/FTE course. But at the moment anybody can call themselves a TP just because they have a PPL, and anybody can call themselves a FTE without ANY formal qualifications at all. Bonkers :eek:

I read an article in Scientific American a while ago about a South African lab technician who did much of the detailed technical work behind the first heart transplant. He then went on to do much of the training of the first 2 or 3 generations of heart transplant surgeons who came to South African to learn.

Yet he was never (until near his death when he got an honorary doctorate) formally recognised for his skills. Why? He was black, and apartheit era ZA couldn't possibly recognise such abilities in somebody the wrong colour.



One of the most capable and respected Test Pilots I've ever worked with has last I asked around 5,000 hours on the class of aircraft that he tests, and has probably flown towards 200 types, and goodness only knows how many first flights. Yet he's never attended TPS, nor for that matter got a commercial licence - because he tests microlight aeroplanes, he functions with a PPL. This didn't stop UK-CAA authorising him as a TP.


What's the issue here? I'd say that both of these people were formally accredited - by the authorities overseeing their work. The lack of a medical degree in one case, or CPL / ETPS / whatever didn't change that fact in either case.


Where I think that you are wrong is in looking for a single central accreditation - this just isn't achievable: the global flight test community (and medical community) is just too disparate. I believe that de-facto accreditation exists and is by and large pretty rigorous; but it's more localised than I think you are hoping to see.


So, a senior flight test manager working in the airliner community, the military community, the light-GA community, etc. knows what is acceptable basis for his or her organisation to accredit any given flight tester as "fit to practice" in that environment.

Similarly, a senior medic in a hospital (or more likely these days, the managing committee!) knows which medical degrees and qualifications they'll accept, and which they won't. This amounts to a system of accreditation again - but is still not universal: somebody accepted as a medical Doctor in e.g. Azerbaijan, is unlikely to receive automatic acceptance in Paris (nor vice versa), they have different practices and standards.




In the meantime, anybody can call themselves an FTE, TP, Doctor, Nurse, accountant.... That's inavoidable, the problem lays with anybody then employing them.

G

Genghis, I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were black, and you're still working in 1980s South Africa.:ugh: Women never used to have the vote, and now they're allowed to buy their own washing machines without supervision. Whatever next??

Anyway, back on thread.....

Actually, the point I was making is that there is a formal qualification route to identify a Doctor from his formal training and accreditation. If a Doctor is not qualified he is not a Doctor. If he is qualified and turns out to be rubbish he is struck off, BY THE GOVERNING BODY. Any monkey can call themselves a TP/FTE, and there is no governing body to set the standards, only a company who chooses whether to continue to employ him.

As to the rest of your post, I agree, that at the moment TPs/FTEs are accredited by their companies only. The same companies that, by your explanation are small and probably poorly funded. In my opinion these are probably not the best people to also be regulating their own TPs/FTEs.

Sorry, but I really feel that you are arguing that black is white. (Pun intended!, but my previous serious point was about the difference between visible qualification and accreditation for competence - not a statement about any political views I might, or might not, have).

If you want to be a TP or FTE (at-least, one who signs anything) for any UK organisation, you have to submit all of your experience and qualifications to the relevant authority: either CAA or (what used to be called) DFlyingPE, who then decides whether to approve you, and with what conditions. This may be largely invisible at the working level, particularly in military FT - but at any level of seniority in civil aviation it's quite an invasive process. They aren't necessarily looking for a specific qualification, but certainly for overall track record and competence in the role.

In the USA the equivalent civil system is called DER - Designated Engineering Representative, so an authorised TP or FTE has to be approved as a "flight test DER". I've had to deal with various other countries around the world (Australia, Cz, Eire) who all have similar approaches.


Similarly in medicine, anybody changing discipline, country (or in the US, even state) has to be re-accredited by the relevant authority in that geographic / skill area. So, apart from their getting to keep the title "Doctor", I really don't see a major difference. In any case, the world's full of people awarding themselves grand titles (for a hobby, I run a Jiu Jitsu club, and you should see the daft things some self appointed martial arts masters call themselves) - why should our profession be any different ? A title alone doesn't get you work.

Dr.Genghis :E

...when they should know better than passing themselves off as something they're not. TP my @rse.

Lord Chief Justice Affirmatron, DFC and bar. OUT

There are three things: training, belonging to a professional organization, being licenced by a government agency.

If I was getting open heart surgery, I'd demand all three.

If I'm buying a new airplane, I'd demand all three.


The Government licence without the professional body runs the risk of paper qualifications without merit. The Professional body without the government licence sets up for internal, incestuous regulation. You could say that the professional organization and the licence confirm the training requirements, but doctors still tend to put their degree on their walls, as well as the others. Where/how you were trained says something other than being licenced by the gov and accepted by peers.

I wouldn't look past a skilled pilot with a suitable background to be employed as a TP, or similiar conditions for an FTE, and I wouldn't demand the ETPS Graduate course for every flight test position, but there are other courses available.

Matthew.

"....The same companies that, by your explanation are small and probably poorly funded. In my opinion these are probably not the best people to also be regulating their own TPs/FTEs"

What, like Bombardier or Cessna? What about the Boeing Airline division; are they all graduate TPs (maybe Rich knows)?

A clear, shining, example has to be Nick Lappos: 32 years with Sikorsky, test flying all the major types (including the Commache) during that period, and finishing as Program Manager on the S-92, but a non TPS graduate.

Well at my end of the ramp, the vast majority ARE TPS graduates - some of more than one (mainly Cold Lake & Edwards so you can work out which of the above I work for - with a sprinkling of NASA, Pax River, EPTS & ENER ). There are, however, some extremely competent TPs & FTEs who didn't come through the military route. Most of these, indeed, don't even appear to originally have had a burning desire to test but gradually ended up doing so after many years of on-the-job experience & training.

This business is an incredibly small world such that a lot of people either know their counterparts or have mutual friends & acqaintances which makes it effectively self-regulating.