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.
The TPS was created to formalize and standardize test pilot training, reduce the high accident rate during the 1940s, and increase the number of productive test flights. 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.
Selection process The school graduates two classes per year. Admission into the USAF TPS is extremely competitive. Thousands of pilots apply. Some are placed on a waitlist two or three times before being accepted.USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 17. Civilians may apply for the long-course program. Prospective students fill out a general TPS application plus forms for USAF pilots and navigators, experimental engineers, and civilian applicants.USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 19. Engineer and civilian applicants must pass a flying Class III physical before facing the TPS selection board.USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 20. 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.
Admission requirements All candidates require secret clearance.U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Instruction 99-107, "Certified Current 4 May 2015" As of May 2015, the minimum admission requirements for application to the USAF TPS are:U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Information (PDF capture of the web page as at 2013-10-08) 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)Bachelor of Science (BS) in engineering, math, or physics (GPA > 3.0) 12 months Aircraft Commander (AC) in a major weapon system (MWS) 750 hours or instructor pilot (IP) in an MWS (1,000 hours if dual IP) Note: 250 hours of manned non-MWS time may be includedAnnual 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 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) 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 Instruction 99-107. p. 4. Air Force standards for flying duty are defined in Air Force Instruction 48-123, Chapter 6.AFI 48-123 Air Force Specialty Codes listed for engineers include:AFOCD, Quick Reference Guide, p. 273 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.USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 18.
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.USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 21. 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.USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 37. At graduation, the commandant usually presents these awards:Air Force Instruction 99-107. p. 15. 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. The four main subdisciplines taught by the USAF TPS Education Division are USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 24. Performance Flying qualities Systems Test management TPS also offers short courses in these areas:USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 35-36. 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:USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 14. 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 USAF TPS Graduate Course Catalog, p. 11. 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
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.USAF Test Pilot School 50 Years and Beyond, p. 11. 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 L. 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.USAF Test Pilot School 50 Years and Beyond, p. 14. The best training for test pilots came from practical experience gained while flying as observers and hangar-talk tutorials from other pilots. USAF Test Pilot School 50 Years and Beyond, p. 15. 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. Setting the standard to overcome this condition were test pilots such as Jimmy Doolittle. While at McCook Field, Doolittle served as a test pilot, but was given leave to earn both Master of Science and doctoral degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Wright from the Start, Ch 4, retrieved June 20, 2008. Today, most test pilots have advanced degrees in engineering.Lopez, Fighter Pilot's Heaven, p.128.
At Wright-Patterson AFB