Simulated in-flight training for aspiring test pilots

Roswell Daily Record Tuesday, October 30, 2007
BY LAURA E. TONEY
RECORD STAFF WRITER

Russ Easter, left, and Dr. Judy Armstrong, middle, stand among students from the National Test Pilot School,. (Daily Record/Lauren E. Toney)

Students from the National Test Pilot School in Mojave, Calif., were welcomed to the Flight Research Training Center at Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell Monday for a week of engineering-focused ground school instruction and advanced in-flight simulation training.

The group of six aspiring test pilots came to the United States from Germany, Korea, Iceland and Thailand to receive intensive training. The Flight Research Training Center has educated students from all over the world, including Australia, Italy and Israel, since it was established in 2002 by the Alliance for Flight Safety Research and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Aeronautics and transportation research company Calspan provides the center with two Learjets that have been specially engineered to simulate various types of aircraft, from large commercial or transport airplanes to fighter jets. Russ Easter, senior test pilot and engineer with Calspan, instructs the students before they get into the cockpit. With complicated formulas written on a white board behind him, Easter said the computers aboard the Learjet allow the test pilot engineer to change different variables in the formulas so a pilot can feel the sudden changes when flying.

A Learjet equipped with this type of advanced technology costs about $6 million, Easter said. He added that Calspan is the only corporation manufacturing planes capable of this type of advanced in-flight simulation. In addition to the Learjet, the company also engineers the F-16 to function as different types of aircraft.

"Our goal is to provide in-flight simulations that will give the pilot a chance to learn what different airplanes feel like and how to fly different aircraft," he said.

The week-long training these future test pilots receive is an amplification of things they've already learned at the National Test Pilot School, and the Learjet provides unique and challenging experience for the young pilots, Easter said.

Easter said Roswell is an ideal place to bring students from the National Test Pilot School to practice because of the amount of available airspace and a cooperative climate. The Roswell International Air Center also provides the second longest runway in the United States.

Dr. Judy Armstrong, ENMU-R provost, said the program is unique in that "some of these men go four or five years as engineering students without even seeing an airplane. It's very humbling when they climb out of the airplanes here."

The Flight Research Training Center also provides upset-recovery training courses. The leading cause of airline fatality is loss of control, a statistic Armstrong said she would like to help change.

"By using the computers on board the planes, we create problems that have actually happened to pilots and allow them to feel the loss of control and then try to fix the problem," Armstrong said. Students usually step off the plane in a cold sweat after experiencing the loss of control.

"But, eventually they feel better about their ability to regain control," she said.

Armstrong said the program will continue to evolve and expand in the coming years. School officials are hoping to break ground on the Aviation Maintenance Technology addition by this December. Armstrong said she would also like to be able to provide flight test engineers and state-of-the-art equipment for companies such as Boeing to use when they come to Roswell to do flight testing.

A museum is also in the works to recognize and depict the historical significance of the Walker Air Force Base, she added..

Easter said being a flight test pilot is worth the intensive training. "It's everyone's wish to be able to fly," he said. "I get to live that dream."