Origins of Flight Test

The Empire Test Pilots' School has been training flight test professionals for over sixty years and has unrivalled experience in its field.

Even as early as 1915, military aviators recognised that effective flight testing was essential to the success of delivering front-line aircraft capabilities. Through rapid and effective evaluation of an aircraft's strengths and weaknesses and communicating these issues to the front-line, flight testing has enabled the RAF's fighters to go into conflict, win and come back alive.

Today's military aviators also play a crucial role in reducing risk and adding value throughout an aircraft's lifecycle by ensuring that all new capability is airworthy, safe and fit for purpose. For more than sixty years the Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS) has been at the heart of this military flight test effort, training the UK tri-Service test pilots and more recently flight test engineers and other flight test professionals.

The origins of flight test training can be traced back to the infancy of military flight. Just seven years after the demonstration of British Army Aeroplane No 1 (a bamboo and canvas bi-plane flown by Samuel Franklin Cody) an Experimental Flight was set up at the Central Flying School, Upavon, in the summer of 1915. The School gathered the few experienced pilots left in the country following the departure of four fighting squadrons to the Western Front, with the sole purpose of assessing the qualities of new aircraft, their armament development and their suitability for operational flying.

In 1943 Air Marshal Sir Ralph Sorley, the controller of Research and Development, became increasingly concerned by the rising number of fatalities in test flying and a lack of standardisation of flying techniques. As a consequence, a Test Pilots' Training Flight was raised at Boscombe Down to address the needs of training potential test pilots in the art of experimental flight and the Empire Test Pilots' School was born. It started as one of a series of RAF 'Empire Schools' including; the Empire Central Flying School, Empire Air Navigation School, Empire Air Armament School and Empire Radio School. The Empire Test Pilots' School is the only one still active.

In 1945 the School's second Commanding Officer (Gp Capt J F X McKenna AFC) was killed whilst piloting a Mustang from Boscombe Down. The aircraft suffered major structural failure - this tragic accident is a clear indicator of the inherent risks associated with test flying. The CO's memory is perpetuated through the annual award of the McKenna Trophy to the best student at their graduation McKenna Dinner.

In the December of 1949 the School was presented with its Armorial Bearings. Chester College of Heralds was commissioned to design it. The motto "Learn to Test - Test to Learn" was suggested by G. Maclaren Humphreys - a civilian technical officer at A&AEE.

By 1963, the growing military importance of helicopters led to the introduction of the Rotary-Wing Course. Likewise, recognising the expanding importance of the link between the flight test pilot and the designer in modern aircraft, the School added a Flight Test Engineers' (FTE) Course in 1974.

Over the years, ETPS has set a world class standard which others strive to emulate. Former graduates have formed the nucleus of three similar schools set up elsewhere - two in the United States, for the Air Force and the Navy; another in France. Cooperation between these establishments continues today, with the constant aim of improving standards within the flight test profession.