Learn to Test, Test to Learn

The Empire Test Pilots' School, inaugurated at Boscombe Down in 1943, has been responsible for training many of the world's top test pilots. The School has also pioneered the teaching and learning methods which have subsequently been imitated by test pilot training establishments in other countries and it is regarded as the most respected such institution in the world.
The School's success stems in part from the calibre of its instructors and its high pupil to tutor ratio, and from its policy of throwing students in at the deep end. For example, someone who has only had experience on single-engined aircraft will be given the Pilots' Notes and told to take a twin or even four-engined machine for a flight the next morning. This produces the confidence which will subsequently enable people to take to the air in unproven prototypes of brand-new aircraft.
As well as fixed-wing aircraft, in more recent years the School has also trained helicopter test pilots and has introduced courses for the flight test engineers with whom the test pilots will have to work so closely both in industry and in the Services.
Moved from Boscombe first to Cranfield, then to Farnborough for twenty years and finally back to Boscombe again, the School has maintained consistently high standards which have brought budding test pilots from America, Italy, Germany, India, Israel and many other countries to learn the demanding techniques of test flying, and in so doing has also contributed a great deal to international co-operation in the flying field. This history of its long career and the personalities who have created it is an especially valuable contribution to aviation literature.


by J. Rawlings and H. Sedgwick
Published by Airlife 1991 1st edition.138pp profusely illustrated, index, appendix. 19x25 fine, including d/j.





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