Flying Qualities I Flight Testing module

Our professional course students have completed the third week of the Flying Qualities I Flight Testing module. After a week of academic lectures, simulators, and exams, they were excited to get back in the air for 2 weeks of flying exercises.

Flights for the fixed-wing students included evaluating aircraft static stability, conducting Vmca testing, and exploring transonic flying qualities in our supersonic T-38.

Flights for the rotary-wing students included evaluating flight control mechanical characteristics, static stability, low airspeed flying qualities, and closed-loop handling qualities.

NTPS is participating in the AIAA AVIATION Forum in Chicago

This week NTPS is participating in the AIAA AVIATION Forum in Chicago, connecting with other professionals from across the aerospace industry. If you're at the Forum, stop by our table to learn about why NTPS is the World's Test Pilot School, hear from some of our students about how our programs are propelling their careers forward, and pick up some free swag! For more information about our course offerings visit our website at www.ntps.edu

 

NTPS Professional Course students visit multiple aerospace companies

NTPS Professional Course students visited multiple aerospace companies all over the US as part
of a weeklong field trip to gain exposure to the flight testing of new aircraft and systems designs.
The team visited Beta technologies, an eVTOL company based in Burlington, Vermont,
Gulfstream Flight Test Center in Savannah, Georgia, Bell Helicopters and Airbus Helicopters in
Fort Worth, Texas. The students were exposed to real world industry flight testing and associated
best practices. They also flew simulators of the eVTOL aircraft “Alia”, Gulfstream’s newest
G700 and G400 business jets, and the Bell 525 fly-by-wire helicopter. The field trip is an
important part of NTPS curriculum through which flight testers get an appreciation of the state of
the art of flight testing in the industry.

 

 Field Trip June 22 2 Field Trip June 22 3 Field Trip June 22 4 Field Trip June 22 5  Field Trip June 22 7 Field Trip June 22 6

UAV Systems Flight Test module

During the UAV Systems Flight Test module, Professional Course students spent a week learning from Industry professionals about the intricacies involved with testing Uncrewed Aircraft Systems and their lessons learned in the process. The students completed several flights with NTPS' Optionally Piloted Aircraft.  This C-150 is flown with a safety pilot onboard to comply with FAA see-and-avoid requirements, but otherwise is remotely piloted. The flight test process allowed the students to work as a team of pilots, sensor operators, engineers and test conductors to perform several types of UAV tests. The students finished up by reporting their results during 1-hour oral briefings.

 

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NTPS Graduate Assistant, Vikrant Sharma, co-authors paper

NTPS is pleased to announce that our Graduate Assistant, Vikrant Sharma, co-authored a paper titled “Unsteady CFD Studies for Gust Modeling in Store Separation”, recently published in the Defence Science Journal. The paper, that can be viewed at the following link: https://doi.org/10.14429/dsj.72.17608, identifies a test procedure for gust simulation using MIL standard data, and studies the emergency release condition where a vertical gust is hitting the aircraft to ascertain safe separation of a store from an airborne platform.