Course Overview

GAC, in conjunction with the Empire Test Pilots’ School (ETPS), has brought together a highly qualified team to offer an Introduction to Fixed Wing Flight Testing course that provides the essentials required to effectively contribute to work being carried out by an experienced flight test team. Students will receive an outstanding educational experience that is grounded in theory, practice and experience, a combination that is difficult to find elsewhere. The course itself is based on one that is delivered routinely by the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) in the United Kingdom. Upon the successful completion of this course, the students will receive a certificate endorsed by the ETPS.

The Course will be delivered in Ottawa, Ontario by instructors from the ETPS, GAC and Marinvent’s Flight Test Centre of Excellence. In addition, instruction, support and demonstrations will be provided by the National Research Council-Flight Research Laboratory, the Operator Performance Laboratory from the University of Iowa, CMC/Esterline and Cog-sim Technologies at Carleton University.

Objective

The Course ensures that students, with little or no flight test background, will be able to plan, conduct and report on Fixed Wing Flight Test programs intended to certify or qualify aircraft and aircraft systems in accordance with civil and military standards. It gives the individuals a level of knowledge sufficient to allow them to contribute as part of a matrix of more experienced individuals. This will be accomplished using a variety of instructional approaches, described as follows:

Pre-Course Study

Students will be given pre-course study packages to ensure that they have a general understanding of basic aerodynamic and mathematical concepts prior to receiving instruction on flight test subjects that use these concepts as a baseline;

Instructor Led Instruction

Highly qualified instructors will provide presentations on Course subject material as identified in the course schedule.

Individual Assignments

Students will be given individual assignments which will be reviewed and marked by the instructors to give the students the opportunity to reinforce concepts taught during the instructor Led Instruction.

Team Assignments and Presentations

Students will be divided into teams and given assignments to be performed during the flights and to be presented as a team final report.

Contributing Organizations

The Empire Test Pilots’ School (ETPS) is based at Ministry of Defence (MOD) Boscombe Down in the United Kingdom. The School is part of the UK Air Test and Evaluation Centre (ATEC) which is run as a partnership between UK MOD and QinetiQ Limited. Participating with GAC to offer the modified Introduction to Fixed Wing Flight Testing course in Canada is the ETPS’ first major foray into extending its presence outside the United Kingdom.

Marinvent Corporation is a privately held Ontario company, founded in 1983 for the purpose of conducting aerospace research and development. Marinvent has been active and successful in the field of flight test operations for over twenty years. The company is self-sufficient for the design, production, testing, and certification of the hardware and software associated with its flight test programs. The company operates two advanced airborne test-beds and a unique research flight simulator, which have been instrumental in the certification of navigation and safety systems for aircraft as diverse as the EC145 Eurocopter and the Boeing 747.

Marinvent has also established Flight Test Centre of Excellence (FTCE) that will provide flight test certification, flight research and development and flight test training services to the aerospace market, both civil and military.

NRC-FRL's vision is to be recognized as Canada's foremost centre for aerospace research and as the leader in aerospace innovation through R&D programs, partnerships and collaborations with stakeholders.

NRC-FLRdevelops and maintains the core competencies and knowledge base critical to the needs of the Canadian aerospace community. It fosters innovation in the design, manufacture, performance, use and safety of aerospace vehicles and supports the development, commercialization and implementation of leading-edge technologies through world-class research, technologies and networking, nationally and internationally.

CMC Electronics Inc. (CMC) is a world leader in the design, manufacture, sales and support of highly reliable systems and components for commercial and defence applications in the aerospace market. Part of that workplace includes leading experts in the field of human factors analysis and flight test certification. These individuals are either human factors specialists with advanced degrees or experimental test pilots.

The Operator Performance Laboratory (OPL) was founded in 1998 and since then has conducted in excess of 9.1 million dollars in funded human factors research. OPL conducts flight simulation and flight test research in the area of operator state characterization using physiological markers. The team’s goal is to conduct scientific research and develop it towards commercial products in operational systems. OPL is currently working on a NASA funded effort to use the Computerized Airborne Research Platform (CARP) research aircraft to collect a wide range of pilot physiological, aircraft state, and environmental data in flight using scenarios that were developed specifically for the purpose of extracting and isolating different operator states.

The GAC aerospace experience includes over 30 years in the field of aviation, in particular flight test execution and training. Each of GAC’s senior employees and associates brings 15 -25 years of aerospace and defence experience and contacts that can be applied with success to the implementation and execution of any program, regardless of complexity. This experience includes the following areas:

Test Pilot Experience

Educational/Training Experience

The ACE Lab was founded in 1995 under the leadership of Dr. Chris M. Herdman who is also the Scientific Director of the newly formed $28M Centre for Visualization and Simulation (VSIM) at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. The ACE Lab has over 20 researchers, including cognitive scientists, engineers, simulation specialists and graduate students. The ACE Lab is a unique multidisciplinary unit that links operators to advanced technologies through the integration of research and development in the human/cognitive sciences with advanced aerospace and systems/computer engineering. The ACE Lab team uses modelling and simulation tools to develop, measure and validate virtual environments for blended training applications. In addition to simulation engineering, the team has extensive experience in all aspects of human factors engineering, including evaluation, advanced univariate and multivariate statistics and usability testing.

Course Conduct

Fixed Wing Aircraft Availability

The Introduction to Fixed Wing Flight Testing course will involve a minimum of two (2) types of fixed wing aircraft available for conducting flight testing exercises for each student up to the potential maximum number of students. These aircraft will have state-of-the-art flight test instrumentation that will allow the students to gather data during the flight exercise.

Facilities and Equipment

The Course will be conducted at a training facility at the Ottawa Airport, close to the National Research Council (NRC) hangar. The facilities, equipment and capacity to be employed in the training are described as follows:

Facilities: ETT will provide training facilities at the Ottawa Airport.
Equipment: The training facility will include access to laptop PC for all students to allow them to do individual/syndicate work and data reduction either in the classroom or in their hotel rooms. The students will be provided with all the in-flight support equipment, such as flying gear and life support equipment.
Aircraft and Simulators: The principal aircraft for this course will be the Piaggio and Cheyenne aircraft. However, other aircraft will be used in the course as required to augment the learning experience. In support of the training exercises, there will also be reconfigurable simulator. Each student will receive a total of 6.0 flight hours and 2 hours working with the simulator. The division of training hours is planned as follows:

Piaggio Aircraft:

Each student will receive 2.4 hours in two separate flights of 1.2 hours in the instrumented Piaggio aircraft to gather flight test data and receive in flight demonstrations for stability and control (S&C), and handling qualities assignment.

The first flight (1.2 hours) demonstrating a range of key flight handling characteristics, performance of S&C flight test techniques, and an introduction to in-flight data gathering using the aircraft’s flight test instrumentation.
The second flight (1.2 hours) will be conducted in teams of four for the purposes of conducting a team exercise to conduct a flight test and to gather data. Students will be expected to give presentations on their results as a team.

Cheyenne Aircraft:

Each student will receive 2.4 hours in two separate flights of 1.2 hours in the Cheyenne aircraft, which is also instrumented and has reconfigurable avionics cockpit.

The first flight (1.2 hours) will focus on demonstrating a range of performance flight test techniques, and an introduction to in-flight data gathering using the aircraft’s flight test instrumentation.
The second flight (1.2 hours) will be conducted in teams of four for the purposes of conducting a team exercise to conduct a flight test and to gather performance and avionics system evaluation data.

Reconfigurable Simulator.

The simulator is architecturally identical to the aircraft, allowing preliminary investigations and rapid-prototyping to be conducted with a significant savings. The simulator is configured with both aircraft and helicopter flight controls and instrumentation. The students will be introduced to the basic flight test concepts in the simulator prior to practicing them in flights, as well as replay selected post-flight data in a fully immersive environment. Each student will be given 2 hours of instruction on the simulator.

Pricing and Cost

$12,000 Cdn + GST.