The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) is the United States Air Force's advanced flight training school that trains experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test navigators to carry out tests and evaluations of new aerospace weapon systems and also other aircraft. This school was established on 9 September 1944 as the Flight Test Training Unit at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB) in Dayton, Ohio. On 4 February 1951, the school was moved to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, which offered uncongested skies, usually superb flying weather, and a lower risk that a crash would threaten people or buildings. The TPS was created to formalize and standardize test pilot training, reduce the high accident rate during the 1940s, and increase the number of productive test flights. In response to the increasing complexity of aircraft and their electronic systems, the school added training programs for flight test engineers and flight test navigators. Between 1962 and 1972, the test pilot school included astronaut training for armed forces test pilots, but these classes were dropped when the U.S. Air Force crewed spaceflight program was suspended. Class sizes have been uniformly quite small, with recent classes having about twenty students. The school is a component of the 412th Test Wing of the Air Force Materiel Command.
Mission The USAF TPS aims to produce highly adaptive, critical-thinking flight test professionals to lead and conduct full-spectrum tests and evaluations of aerospace weapons, and to be the world's premier educational and training center for theoretical and applied flight test engineering.
Selection process The school graduates two classes per year.
Admission into the USAF TPS is extremely competitive. Thousands of pilots apply. Some are placed on a waitlist two or three times before being accepted. Civilians may apply for the long-course program. Prospective students fill out a general TPS application plus forms for USAF pilots and navigators, experimental engineers, and civilian applicants. Engineer and civilian applicants must pass a flying Class III physical before facing the TPS selection board. Applications must be received by Special Flying Programs Section HQ AFPC/DPAOT3 no later than 45 days before the selection boards meet. The boards are held once a year at the headquarters of the Air Force Personnel Center, normally in November, to pick the members of the school's two classes of the next year, including AFIT-TPS students and students from foreign TPS schools. The board is chaired by the TPS commandant; other members are appointed by the AFMC/DO and include an HQ AFPC colonel. Most of the board members must be TPS graduates (majors or lieutenant colonels) who lead flight test squadrons.
Admission requirements All candidates require secret clearance. As of May 2015, the minimum admission requirements for application to the USAF TPS are:
Grade point average is on a 4.0 scale. Air Force standards for flying duty are defined in Air Force Instruction 48-123, Chapter 6. Air Force Specialty Codes listed for engineers include: 13XX—Operations: Space, Missile, Command, and Control 14NX—Operations: Intelligence 21AX—Logistics: Aircraft Maintenance 21CX—Logistics: (not found) 21LX—Logistics: Logistician 21MX—Logistics: Munitions and Missile Maintenance 33SX—Support: Communications and Information 61SX—Acquisition: Scientist 62EX—Acquisition: Developmental Engineer 63AX—Acquisition: Acquisition Manager
Exchange program From time to time, students are selected to attend different test pilot schools in an exchange program between test cultures. Toward this end, students can be sent to the Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and vice versa. Also, the USAF Test Pilot School has an exchange program with the Empire Test Pilots' School at Boscombe Down, England, and the EPNER (École du Personnel Navigant d'Essais et de Réception), the French Test Pilot's School.
Course of study The USAF TPS curriculum is designed to grant a Master of Science degree in flight test engineering through the Air Force's Air University at the end of the 48-week course. Students are required to take all of the 20 offered courses to graduate. This is a total of 50 credit hours for the 48-week course. Each of the four phases are broken down into three or four main lecture courses, plus their associated flight laboratory work or flight simulator work, and actual practice flights. To graduate from the USAF TPS, a student must be in good standing and satisfactorily complete all academic tests, all oral and written reports, all of the required flight missions, and comprehensive pre-graduation written and oral evaluations with an overall GPA of 3.0 or better. Accreditation from the American Council of Education has been in effect since July 1974 (last updated in July 1998) to recommend selected coursework for transfer credit to other higher education institutions. At graduation, the commandant usually presents these awards: Liethen-Tittle Award to the experimental test pilot graduate with the best overall record for outstanding performance and academic excellence R.L. Jones Award to the outstanding experimental test navigator or experimental flight test engineer graduate with the best overall record for outstanding performance and academic excellence
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