The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) is the United States Air Force's advanced flight training school that trains experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test navigators to carry out tests and evaluations of new aerospace weapon systems and also other aircraft. This school was established on 9 September 1944 as the Flight Test Training Unit at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB) in Dayton, Ohio. On 4 February 1951, the school was moved to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, which offered uncongested skies, usually superb flying weather, and a lower risk that a crash would threaten people or buildings. In response to the increasing complexity of aircraft and their electronic systems, the school added training programs for flight test engineers and flight test navigators. Between 1962 and 1972, the test pilot school included astronaut training for armed forces test pilots, but these classes were dropped when the U.S. Air Force crewed spaceflight program was suspended. Class sizes have been uniformly quite small, with recent classes having about twenty students. The school is a component of the 412th Test Wing of the Air Force Materiel Command.

Mission

The USAF TPS aims to produce highly adaptive, critical-thinking flight test professionals to lead and conduct full-spectrum tests and evaluations of aerospace weapons, and to be the world's premier educational and training center for theoretical and applied flight test engineering.

  • Civilians may apply for the long-course program.
  • Engineer and civilian applicants must pass a flying Class III physical before facing the TPS selection board.
  • Applications must be received by Special Flying Programs Section HQ AFPC/DPAOT3 no later than 45 days before the selection boards meet. The boards are held once a year at the headquarters of the Air Force Personnel Center, normally in November, to pick the members of the school's two classes of the next year, including AFIT-TPS students and students from foreign TPS schools. The board is chaired by the TPS commandant; other members are appointed by the AFMC/DO and include an HQ AFPC colonel. Most of the board members must be TPS graduates (majors or lieutenant colonels) who lead flight test squadrons. As of May 2015, the minimum admission requirements for application to the USAF TPS are:

{| class="wiki table"

|-

! Course !! Time in Service (at time of entry) !! Education !! Experience !! Physical qualification

|-

| Experimental test pilot

| Less than 9 years and 6 months (helicopter: 10 years and 3 months)

| rowspan=3|Bachelor of Science (BS) in engineering, math, or physics (GPA > 3.0)

| 12 months Aircraft Commander (AC) in a major weapon system (MWS) <br/> 750 hours or instructor pilot (IP) in an MWS (1,000 hours if dual IP) <br/> Note: 250 hours of manned non-MWS time may be included

| rowspan=3|Annual flying class II

|-

| Experimental test RPA (Remotely Piloted Aircraft) pilot

| Less than 9 years and 6 months

| IP in RPA MWS or at least 750 hours <br/> Note: 250 hours in a manned MWS may be included

|-

| Experimental combat systems officer (CSO including navigator, WSO)

| Less than 9 years and 6 months

| Instructor in CSO MWS or at least 500 hours in MWS, excludes student time

|-

| Experimental flight test engineer

| Less than 8 years

| BS in engineering, math, or physics (GPA > 3.0) <br/> A technical M.S. degree highly desired

| ≥ 2 years experience in 13XX, 14NX, 15AX, 17XX 21AX, 21CX, 21LX, 21MX, 33SX, 61X, 62EX, 63AX

| Annual flying class III

|}

  • Grade point average is on a 4.0 scale.
  • Air Force standards for flying duty are defined in Air Force Instruction 48-123, Chapter 6.
  • Air Force Specialty Codes listed for engineers include:
  • 13XX—Operations: Space, Missile, Command, and Control
  • 14NX—Operations: Intelligence
  • 21AX—Logistics: Aircraft Maintenance
  • 21CX—Logistics: (not found)
  • 21LX—Logistics: Logistician
  • 21MX—Logistics: Munitions and Missile Maintenance
  • 33SX—Support: Communications and Information
  • 61SX—Acquisition: Scientist
  • 62EX—Acquisition: Developmental Engineer
  • 63AX—Acquisition: Acquisition Manager

Exchange program

From time to time, students are selected to attend different test pilot schools in an exchange program between test cultures. Toward this end, students can be sent to the Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and vice versa. Also, the USAF Test Pilot School has an exchange program with the Empire Test Pilots' School at Boscombe Down, England, and the EPNER (École du Personnel Navigant d'Essais et de Réception), the French Test Pilot's School.

Course of study

  • The USAF TPS curriculum is designed to grant a Master of Science degree in flight test engineering through the Air Force's Air University at the end of the 48-week course. Students are required to take all of the 20 offered courses to graduate. This is a total of 50 credit hours for the 48-week course. Each of the four phases are broken down into three or four main lecture courses, plus their associated flight laboratory work or flight simulator work, and actual practice flights. To graduate from the USAF TPS, a student must be in good standing and satisfactorily complete all academic tests, all oral and written reports, all of the required flight missions, and comprehensive pre-graduation written and oral evaluations with an overall GPA of 3.0 or better.
  • Accreditation from the American Council of Education has been in effect since July 1974 (last updated in July 1998) to recommend selected coursework for transfer credit to other higher education institutions.
  • At graduation, the commandant usually presents these awards:
  • Liethen-Tittle Award to the experimental test pilot graduate with the best overall record for outstanding performance and academic excellence
  • R.L. Jones Award to the outstanding experimental test navigator or experimental flight test engineer graduate with the best overall record for outstanding performance and academic excellence

Curriculum

  • Two classes are held each year, 48 weeks each (long class). Students can apply for one of three tracks - experimental test pilot, flight test engineer, or flight test navigator. The upper class is called the senior class, while the lower class is called the juniors, determined by what point they are at in their studies at TPS. The class size at TPS varies. Over the past few years, over 20 TPS students have been in each class.
  • Performance
  • Flying qualities
  • Systems
  • Test management
  • TPS also offers short courses in these areas:
  • Aerospace vehicle test course
  • Unmanned aerial vehicle flight test engineering
  • Electronic warfare flight test engineering
  • Test management
  • Equations of motion
  • Propulsion
  • Senior executive course
  • Organization of the class uses this chain of command:
  • Commandant—TPS commander
  • Deputy commandant—TPS deputy commander
  • Class leader— assigned by the front office based on seniority and academic curriculum to assist the student population
  • Students
  • Facilities include
  • Two fully functional control rooms
  • RADAR and electro-optics labs
  • Variable-stability in-flight simulator test aircraft or F-16 VISTA
  • Student library
  • About 100 airborne laboratories over the course of the academic year from Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 to Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit

History

Early years

left|thumb|Packard-LePere Lusac 11 Biplane over McCook Field

Although the United States Armed Forces had been evaluating aircraft since Lt. Benny Foulois flew with Orville Wright in 1909, the designation of "test pilot" was not formally applied until a group of McCook Field pilots was assigned to a flight testing squadron at Wright Field during World War I. Test pilot selection was a seemingly indiscriminate process yielding a mix of experienced pilots who had volunteered for the task, flight instructors who were simply assigned to the job, and the occasional officer fresh from flying school. One of the latter, Lt. Donald Putt, who would later rise to the rank of lieutenant general, recalled:

Test pilot training was nearly as informal as the selection process with most material directed toward the aeronautical engineers who supervised the tests. Reports and texts of this time provided little guidance regarding how tests should be flown. The best training for test pilots came from practical experience gained while flying as observers and hangar-talk tutorials from other pilots. A test pilot was not expected to have a formal engineering background. He was simply to follow the instructions on the test card and fly the airplane appropriately. Today, most test pilots have advanced degrees in engineering.

At Wright-Patterson AFB

right|thumb|Map of Wright Field in 1954

Inspired by the RAF's Empire Test Pilots' School, Colonel Ernest K. Warburton, chief of the Flight Test Section at Wright Field, set about changing the role and status of flight testing in the Army Air Forces. His goals for the flight test community were standardization and independence, which were later realized with the establishment of the Air Technical Command Flight Test Training unit on 9 September 1944 Under the command of Major Ralph C. Hoewing, the Flight Test Training Unit's curriculum included classroom sessions covering performance flight test theory and piloting techniques. The students then put theory into practice with performance evaluations on the AT-6 Texan trainer. Shortly after the first class graduated, the school was redesignated the Flight Section School Branch with an increased focus on academic theory. In 1945, the school moved to Vandalia Municipal Airport (now the Dayton International Airport), after which it was redesignated the Flight Performance School and placed under the command of Lt. Colonel John R. Muehlberg, who became the first to carry the title "commandant". Little is known about the second class of students (the first class at Vandalia), but according to Robert "Bob" Rahn in his book Tempting Fate, he identified four pilots who were in this class: , , , and Robert "Bob" Rahn. The class designation for this class is not known. Under Muehlberg, who in 1944/45 had attended the second course at the newly established ETPS in England, the school increased its fleet with North American P-51 Mustangs, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and North American B-25 Mitchells and expanded the curriculum to include a separate four-month stability and control course in addition to the existing performance course. In 1946, the test pilot school was moved again to nearby Patterson Field and Colonel Albert Boyd was assigned as chief of the Flight Test Division. Col. Boyd profoundly influenced both the school and the character of its future AAF test pilots with his insistence on precision flying skills and discipline. A graduate of the school in 1946, Major Bob Cardenas, later summarized Col. Boyd's influence: