Test pilot

A test pilot is an aviator who flies new and modified aircraft in specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques or FTTs, allowing the results to be measured and the design to be evaluated.

Test pilots may work for military organizations or private, (mostly aerospace) companies. Testing military aircraft, in particular, is regarded as the most challenging and risky flying conducted in peacetime.

In the 1950s, test pilots were being killed at the rate of about one a week, but the risks have shrunk to a fraction of that, thanks to the maturation of aircraft technology, better ground-testing and simulation of aircraft performance, fly by wire technology and lately, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to test experimental aircraft features. Still, piloting experimental aircraft remains more dangerous than most other types of flying.

Qualifications

A test pilot must be able to:

Test Pilot

Test Pilot may refer to:

Test Pilot (film)

Test Pilot is a 1938 film directed by Victor Fleming, starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, and featuring Lionel Barrymore. The film tells the story of a daredevil test pilot (Gable), his wife (Loy), and his best friend (Tracy).

Test Pilot was written by Howard Hawks, Vincent Lawrence, John Lee Mahin, Frank Wead and Waldemar Young. The screenplay was largely based on an original story by former naval aviator Wead.

Plot

Reckless test pilot Jim Lane (Clark Gable) is forced to land on a Kansas farm in his aircraft, the "Drake Bullet", where he meets Ann "Thursday" Barton (Myrna Loy). They spend the day together and fall in love. Once Jim's best friend and mechanic, Gunner Morris (Spencer Tracy), arrives, Jim ignores Ann. To spur him, she gets engaged to her sweetheart. Jim leaves in the morning, but soon comes back for her. They quickly get married.

Jim loses his job at Drake, when he clashes with the owner (Lionel Barrymore), and takes a job with another outfit, flying a very experimental aircraft. Ann soon finds out how dangerous her husband's occupation is, but she promises Gunner that she will stick to her man. Jim wins the race, but Benson, the man Drake sends in Jim's place, dies, leaving a wife and three children behind.