For most organisations it is not appropriate or even possible to employ a test pilot or lead flight test engineer full time with all the appropriate qualifications, skills and experiences to serve all of their projects. The obvious solution is to employ test crew on a freelance basis, but the difficulties in finding one that is available, qualified, appropriately experienced, current in the required skills and aircraft, affordable and even speaks the same language can often cause delays and compromise a project. To address these issues Flight Test Solutions offers a contracting agency that can identify and recruit test crews to precisely fit the customer’s requirements. The primary features and benefits of the Flight Test Solutions test crew contracting agency are:

• Source test pilots and lead flight test engineers, both fixed and rotary wing for any test crew activity
• Target specific skills and experience thereby reducing aviation and project risk. For example ship helicopter operating limits (SHOL) trials on night vision systems or aircraft type specific qualifications
• All test pilots are graduates of a recognised test pilot school and are fully qualified in accordance with EASA Part-FCL
• All lead flight test engineers are graduates of a recognised test pilot school and possess appropriate professional experience
• All test crews can communicate to a professional level in English and many have a second or third language competency
• The contractual interaction between the customer’s project manager and the nominated test crew is professionally and smoothly managed by Flight Test Solutions to ensure that there are no delays and all expectations are unambiguously agreed
• As an experienced test pilot the FTS Director of Operations is able discuss the technical and project requirements with the customer during the planning phase of a project and offer cost and time effective solutions
• The level of support to a project is flexible, ranging from the provision of a complete team for a complex modification to a single day of consultation
• The contracted test crews are all personally selected to ensure that not only are they professionally appropriate but also that they easily integrate within and support the customer’s in-house experts and engineers

Contact us here to find out more about how Flight Test Solutions can help your organisation to find the right flight test personnel for your forthcoming test campaign.