Air Force Announces Results of Selection Board

The Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base, TX, announced Wednesday that 35 Air Force officers had been selected to attend test pilot school. A selection board met in November, but the results are only being announced now. The selected officers have been notified.

Most of them, 32, will attend the US Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, CA. Two will see the other side of things at he US Navy Test Pilot School at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, MD, and a single officer will learn how the other side does it, at the Empire Test Pilot School at RAF Boscombe Down.

The release did not say that all the selected officers were pilots; it would be normal for about 40% of them to be flight-test engineers or navigators. Even the pilots need an engineering background and education, not just first-rate flying skills, to be considered for this plum assignment.

The graduates of these schools have gone on to conduct experimental test flight of most of the military's new aircraft, as well as perform the more routine side of flight test, such as performance testing and weapons compatibility flights. Flight-test school selection often marks "high-flying" candidates for even more responsible positions in the Air Force and beyond. Test Pilot School graduates are well-represented in the astronaut ranks, and are widely sought after by civilian industry as well.

Prerequisites don't seem insuperably high. While the applicant needs, in most cases, a BS in Engineering, Mathematics or Physics, the minimum grade point average (GPA) is only 2.5 on a 4.0 scale. But this is not a case where the minimum is usually good enough; the positions are highly competitive. Pilots must have 12 months' experience as aircraft commander and be qualified instructor pilots in a "major weapon system" or, if not instructors, have at least 750 hours total time. Navigators need to be qualified instructors in their system or have at least 500 hours (maybe they learn faster than pilots?).

Student time, and UAV controller time -- which the USAF generally counts as flight time -- don't count towards these minimums. For example, it helps an engineer or navigator to have FAA licenses; it helps a pilot to have demonstrated accomplishments in engineering or physics. Once a student is accepted, the grueling school program begins.

While it varies slightly among the three schools, pilots, engineers and navigators spend about a year in a high-pressure, physically and mentally demanding training environment. Pilots going in might have flown fighters, bombers or transports, but coming out they are qualified to test-fly just about any kind of airplane -- and then document its properties equally cogently, whether speaking the highly technical, mathematical language of the engineer, or the blunt, highly-stylized English of a military pilot.

The Air Force did not release the names of the selectees.

FMI: www.edwards.af.mil/tps