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The Naval Test Pilot School is a squadron of the Naval Test Wing Atlantic at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division. The school is attached to the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, which is located on over 6,000 acres of land adjacent to the Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay. "We are the acquisition community's test and evaluation training squadron and have been so since the school first came about," explains Commanding Officer Mike Rabens. Some of the most highly qualified and respected aviators, naval flight officers, and engineers come through the school's doors every year.

The school, one of only four such training establishments in the Western world, traces its beginnings to 1945. It started as an informal three-month training program for test pilots. With the inauguration of a formal six-month course of instruction in 1948, this modest program became known as the Test Pilot Training Division. In 1958, the division was officially designated the US Naval Test Pilot School. The course lengthened to eight months. In those early days, a new class convened every four months.

A helicopter flight curriculum was added in 1961, initially accommodating two helicopter pilots per class. By 1975, the number of rotary wing pilots had increased to ten per class in response to US Army and Air Force training requirements.

The rotary wing curriculum remains the only one of its kind in the United States. In 1966, flight officer training was added, as the increased importance of the flight officer in testing airborne systems was recognized. In 1973, both the fixed wing and rotary wing curricula were restructured and expanded in length to the present eleven-month course. The growing sophistication of modern aircraft systems led to another major modification in 1975 with the addition of a specialized eleven-month airborne systems curriculum.

"We take pilots, engineers, and Naval Flight Officers from all the services and teach them how to be test and evaluation experts," explains Cdr. Lyn Whitmer, a former skipper of the school. "Test pilots have traditionally been stick-and-rudder system operators and testers," adds Rabens. "Now they are expected to go into a program at what is known as milestone zero, the beginning, when they are looking at procuring a new airplane."

Involving test pilots from day one benefits the cockpit layout, mission configurations, and the overall design of any new piece of hardware. Contractors also use test pilots to refine simulators used to evaluate the flying qualities of new aircraft. This work is done years before an aircraft is ever built.

The experienced pilots at the school learn how to approach very technical problems and how to communicate their observations and solutions to engineers and system designers. A test pilot is always looking at particular systems with the eye of a warfighter.

Pilots must meet some very strict criteria to apply for admission to the school. Out of the 150 Navy applicants for each class, for example, only fifteen are selected. The selection board looks for at least 1,000 hours of flight time.

Academic background is taken into account and evaluators look closely at the quality of education of prospective students. An important measure is performance record. Most applicants who are accepted have held leadership positions.

The school runs two classes through the eleven-month course every year. Each class has thirty-six students with a variety of backgrounds. Engineers come from Pax River and from Point Mugu and China Lake on the West Coast. Aircrews come from Navy, Marine, and Army units. The US Air Force sends an exchange student to each class. And about three students come from international air forces. Seventeen countries are represented in fifty-two years of graduates.

The student population is divided into groups of five or six and assigned a staff mentor and group advisor, who helps them stay on track for the first couple of months. Not all of the work at the school takes place in a cockpit. In fact, the days are split into thirds, or into three halves. "We basically tell the students that half of the day is spent in the classroom, half in the cockpit, and half writing reports," comments Rabens with a grin.

One of the two classes flies in the morning and has academics in the afternoon. The other has academics in the morning and flies in the afternoon. In the first few weeks, students take some refresher courses to get them back into the classroom mode and to ensure that everyone is up to speed before beginning the rest of the course in earnest.

The school uses a variety of teaching methods, including standard lectures and tests as well as more interactive approaches. Group projects are common. One student may use the simulator to fly a new flight control system he designed as his classmates analyze the data derived from these tests.

Students complete 550 hours of academic work at the graduate level. Subjects include aerodynamics, thermodynamics, flight control system theory, systems theory, radar, electro optics, and navigation systems. Students must apply the principles learned in academics in a variety of real-world aviation environments. They begin with basic thermodynamics and work to subsonic aerodynamics and then onto supersonic aerodynamics. They also study electro optics, radar systems, electronic warning receivers, and jamming techniques.

The classroom work is performed simultaneously with daily flying tasks. The OH-58 Kiowa and TH-6 Cayuse are the main rotary wing aircraft at the school. The T-2 Buckeye and T-38 Talon are the primary fixed-wing aircraft. The school's inventory consists of forty-four aircraft and eleven different aircraft types, including the X-26 glider, de Havilland Beaver and Otter, U-21 Sema, F-18 Hornet, H-60 Blackhawk, and SH-60B Seahawk.

Both rotary- and fixed-wing courses have a variable-stability aircraft. The fixed-wing students fly a Learjet supplied by CalSpan. Rotary-wing students fly the SH-60B Seahawk. These two aircraft allow students to pre-program a "new" flight control design into the aircraft's flight control system, albeit after testing it in the simulator beforehand.

Other aircraft are brought to the school throughout the year to give students access to a variety of additional platforms not available at NAS Patuxent River. Two World War 2 SNJ trainers recently visited the school. Until recently, a two-seat North American P-51 Mustang was used as the World War 2-era bird. The F-18s are used for systems evaluations, that is, to learn about air-to-ground radar , air-to-air radar, weapons systems integration, and night vision goggles. The syllabus also includes at least one familiarization flight in the F-18, but the majority of the demonstration and evaluation flights are in the T-38 and T-2.

The school has a P-3 Orion rigged with an APG-66 radar, Westinghouse forward-looking infrared system, and dual-redundant inertial navigation system with a global positioning system - all on a 1553 databus. The P-3 is used for demo flights as an airborne systems classroom.

About an hour and a half before flying, students plan exactly what they are going to do in highly detailed preflight briefings. Instructors play an important role in these briefings. "We are here to make sure they get as much data as possible during the flight so they can write their reports," says Cdr. Spike Long, one of the unit's instructor pilots. During the flight, the instructor pilot provides advice to complete the assigned tasks. Once back, the pilot undergoes about a thirty-minute debrief. The length of the debrief depends on how the mission went. They have been known to stretch to two hours.

Students finish with about 100 or so flights and accumulate about 150 flight hours each. They analyze the results of their flights and present them in twenty-five reports written throughout the course. The heavy writing load teaches them to communicate information in a variety of styles and formats.

The most anticipated exercise of the year is the final "thesis" in which students are sent away to fly an aircraft they have never flown before. Army guys might fly the Sea Stallion, Apache, or Cobra. Some might head overseas to fly aircraft, such as the British Harrier or Tornado. Foreign students may be sent to Point Mugu to use their newly acquired skills to evaluate the F-14 Tomcat.

A very dedicated group of instructors, a mix of both military and civilian, are at the heart of the school. "Our academic instructors are the backbone of what we do here and are a tremendous asset. All of their experience represents hundreds of years," explains Rabens. "One of our current academic instructors actually graduated at the top of his TPS class."

The flying staff includes twelve fixed-wing and nine rotary-wing instructor pilots and four naval flight officers. Jerry Gallagher, a former A-7 pilot with combat experience, is a classic example of the type of instructor pilot at the school. He is known as the SpinMeister on the T-2s. With two launches a day, Gallagher and his fellow instructors get plenty of chances to fly.

"We also have a tremendous scheduling officer," adds Rabens. "Thanks to her, everything here runs extremely smooth." Dyncorp, a private contractor, provides the maintenance staff. "They make sure that the airplanes are ready like clockwork," says Rabens. "These guys have been working here for years. They know individual aircraft like the backs of their hands."

Rabens is quick to acknowledge the pivotal role that people play in producing competent test pilots. "Our people are the best assets we have here at the school," he says. "We are extremely lucky to have more experience than we know what to do with. If only half of our experience is passed along to the students, they will leave here the best anywhere."

Neville Dawson is an aviation writer and photographer based in Australia.