ETPS students train in an Airbus A320 simulator as well as in development simulators at DERA, Bedford.
"Simulators are good for preparing the mind, but test flying still is and always will be essential because the aircraft comes first," says EPNER's deputy director, Jacques Dumoulin. He points to the crashes of the fly-by-wire Lockheed Martin F-22 and Saab Gripen early in their test programmes, despite thousands of hours of simulated flying. "Simulator codes cannot fully represent an aircraft. The "gain" [the amount of control movement to achieve a particular action] of pilots is never the same. Wind may be coming from an unexpected direction and there will almost certainly be differences in aerodynamic and simulated behaviour," he adds. "You can't say simulation is 100% successful if you then crash the aircraft."
EPNER has three levels of simulator: "light", to demonstrate the MMI and permit changes to symbology so that students can evaluate modifications and comment on them; "simplified", to familiarise students with methods of assessing the MMI; and "actual", in which students carry out a complete flight test as if they were in a real aircraft.
The USNTPS school has a static flying qualities simulator for instructing and practising test techniques such as stick pump to define an aircraft's pitch characteristics. USNTPS also has a McDonnell Douglas/General Dynamics A-12 cockpit rescued from the defunct programme's mock-up.
Source: Flight International
