Test Pilot Literature

Test Pilot School Textbooks

We have compiled a list of some test pilot school textbooks, which are in the public domain. The teaching materials of the National Test Pilot School (NTPS) are not available for purchase separately, unless you take their courses, but some of the textbooks of other internationally recognized test pilot schools are.

Unites States Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS)

Some older textbooks from the USAF TPS are in the public domain:

United States Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) Textbooks, Edwards AFB, California (1986):
- Volume 1: Performance Phase:
  https://ia800107.us.archive.org/22/items/DTIC_ADA170957/DTIC_ADA170957.pdf
- Volume 2: Flying Qualities (Stability and Control), Part 1:
  https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a170959.pdf
- Volume 2: Flying Qualities (Stability and Control), Part 2:
  https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a170960.pdf
- Volume 3: System Phase:
  not found as one file, but see individual chapter files below.
- “Flying Qualities Phase Planning Guide” (1996):
  https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a319971.pdf
- “Systems Phase Planning Guide” (1995):
  https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320042.pdf

USAF TPS Textbook, Volume 2: Flying Qualities Textbook (1988-1991) (similar to the above, but one file per chapter and some typos fixed):

Links to files containing individual chapters

USAF TPS Textbook, Volume 3: Systems Phase (1983-1996) (one file per chapter):

Links to files containing individual chapters

Chapter 1: Introduction to Systems Testing, September 1990:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320041.pdf
Chapter 2: Navigation Systems, March 1988:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320040.pdf
Chapter 2A: Satellite Navigation Using the Global Positioning System, January 1996:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320039.pdf
Chapter 3: Human Factors, June 1983:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320038.pdf
Chapter 4: Radar Systems, January 1992:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320037.pdf
Chapter 5: Electro-Optical Systems, June 1995:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320036.pdf
Chapter 6: Electronic Combat Systems, March 1989:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320035.pdf
Chapter 6A: Electronic Warfare/Radar Handbook, January 1990:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320034.pdf
Chapter 6B: ECM and ECCM Workbook, January 1987:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320033.pdf
Chapter 7: Integrated Avionics Systems, September 1985:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320032.pdf
Chapter 8: Stores Certification, March 1991:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320031.pdf
Chapter 9: ??? (apparently missing)
Chapter 10: Aeroelasticity/Aircraft Structures, November 1990:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320030.pdf
Chapter 10A: Structures Flight Test Handbook, November 1990:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA320029.pdf

USAF TPS Textbook: Flutter/Structures Testing:
William J. Norton, “Structures Flight Test Handbook,” 1st Edition, AFFTC-TIH-90-001, Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, California, November 1990.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA257262
William J. Norton, “Structures Flight Test Handbook,” 2nd Edition, AFFTC-TIH-98-02, Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, California, May 2002.
https://odonata-research.com/references/aeroelasticity/flight-flutter-testing/AFFTC-TIH-98-02.pdf

United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS)

Some of the USNTPS Flight Test Manuals are in the public domain, and can be retrieved from the document library on the website of the US Naval Test Pilot School Alumni Association at http://www.usntpsalumni.com/document-library

United States Naval Test Pilot School Flight Test Manuals:

Fixed Wing Stability and Control:
http://www.usntpsalumni.com/Resources/Documents/USNTPS_FTM_103.pdf
Fixed Wing Performance:
http://www.usntpsalumni.com/Resources/Documents/USNTPS_FTM_108.pdf
Rotary Wing Stability and Control:
http://www.usntpsalumni.com/Resources/Documents/USNTPS_FTM_107.pdf
Rotary Wing Performance:
http://www.usntpsalumni.com/Resources/Documents/USNTPS_FTM_106.pdf
Systems Testing:
http://www.usntpsalumni.com/Resources/Documents/USNTPS_FTM_109.pdf

Reference Handbooks

SFTE Flight Test Engineering Reference Handbook (2013 3rd Edition; 2017 Air Data Addendum):
http://sfte.org/reference-handbook/

NATO Research & Technology Organization (RTO) AGARDograph Series

N. Stoliker, “Introduction to Flight Test Engineering,” RTO AGARDograph 300, Flight Test Techniques Series – Volume 14, July 2005.

More references to volumes of the different AGARDograph series will be posted as time allows. The above volume focuses on the non-mathematical and managerial aspects of flight test engineering, as opposed to the test pilot school textbook references further above, which are mostly physics, mathematics, and flight test method oriented.

Flight Test Engineering Textbooks

Donald T. Ward, Thomas W. Strganac, Rob Niewoehner, ”Introduction to Flight Test Engineering,” Volume 1, 3rd Edition, Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 2006. ISBN 9780757529344.
(The first and second editions were a single-volume book only by the first two authors.)
Donald T. Ward, Thomas W. Strganac, Rob Niewoehner, ”Introduction to Flight Test Engineering,” Volume 2, 1st Edition, Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 2007. ISBN 9780757551512.
Ralph D. Kimberlin, “Flight Testing of Fixed-Wing Aircraft,” AIAA Education Series, 2003. ISBN-13 978-1563475641, ISBN-10 1563475642.
James W. Gregory, Tianshu Liu, “Introduction to Flight Testing,” John Wiley & Sons, 2021. ISBN 978-1-118-94982-5.
Darrol Stinton, “Flying Qualities and Flight Testing of the Airplane”, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astonautics (AIAA) & Blackwell Sciences Ltd., Reston and Oxford, 1996. ISBN 1-56347-274-0 (paper).
Robert E. McShea, “Test and Evaluation of Avionics and Aircraft Weapons Systems”, 2nd Edition, SciTech Publishing, Edison, NJ, 2014. ISBN 978-1-61353-176-1 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-61353-180-8 (PDF).

Flight Test Standards and Guides

This literature covers the regulations (civilian and military), which specify what performance and flying qualities are considered acceptable and must be met by newly designed aircraft, as well as verified in flight tests before certification. They are of importance not only for engineers and test pilots, but also for pilots in general, because pilots should know what the airplane they fly has been designed to do.

The documents listed are just a small selection and at times this list contains obsolete documents, where of interest.

Civilian

Regulations:

Federal Aviation Regulations, 14 CFR Part 23, “Airworthiness Standards: Normal Category Airplanes.”
(Formerly also included Utility, Acrobatic, and Commuter Categories, which have been dissolved in the recent Part 23 rewrite.)
Federal Aviation Regulations, 14 CFR Part 25, “Airworthiness Standards: Transport Category Airplanes.”
Federal Aviation Regulations, 14 CFR Part 27, “Airworthiness Standards: Normal Category Rotorcraft.”
Federal Aviation Regulations, 14 CFR Part 29, “Airworthiness Standards: Transport Category Rotorcraft.”

Suggested Means of Compliance:

Part 23:

Part 25:

FAA Advisory Circular AC 25-7D, “Flight Test Guide for Certification of Transport Category Airplanes,” Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington D.C., May 4, 2018.

Part 27:

FAA Advisory Circular AC 27-1B (with Changes 1–8), “Certification of Normal Category Rotorcraft,” Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington D.C., June 29, 2018.

Ultralight and Amateur-Built:

FAA Advisory Circular AC 90-89B, “Amateur-Built Aircraft & Ultralight Testing Handbook,” Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington D.C., April 27, 2015.
Jeffrey Scott Bender, “Flight Testing Amateur-Built Helicopters,” Master’s Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1999. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/1353/
(This is the unofficial, but intentional, helicopter equivalent of FAA AC 90-89B, which is mostly geared towards fixed-wing.)

AOPA Article for General Aviation Pilots on Performance-Based Rewrite of 14 CFR Part 23:

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), “Understanding Part 23 Rewrite.”
Retrieved from https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/advocacy-briefs/understanding-part-23-rewrite

Military

Military Specifications:

MIL-STD-1797A (USAF), “Flying Qualities of Piloted Vehicles”, January 30, 1990 (redesigned as a handbook, MIL-HDBK-1797, on December 19, 1997, but later reinstated). Current version MIL-STD-1797B (February 15, 2006) is for controlled distribution only (classified). For a complete history of this document, see timeline here. MIL-STD-1797A supersedes MIL-F-8785 and often references it. Appendix C establishes a correspondence between paragraphs in MIL-STD-1797A and MIL-F-8785C.
Note: When reading MIL-HDBK-1797, one needs to understand its layout. The first ca. 100 pages contain the specifications as a skeleton document with many blanks. These blanks are to be filled in on an individual basis for the particular aircraft being tested based on the guidelines in Appendix A. Appendix A (which spans several hundred pages) has the same layout as the skeleton document, but with many details, and goes as far as including rationales for some of the specifications and requirements based on aircraft incidents and accidents.
MIL-F-8785C: “Flying Qualities of Piloted Airplanes,” November 5, 1980 and Background Information and User Guide for MIL-F-8785C (AFWAL-TR-81-3109). This is the predecessor of MIL-STD-1797A.
MIL-F-83691B (USAF), “Flight Test Demonstration Requirements for Departure Resistance and Post-Departure Characteristics of Piloted Airplanes”, March 1, 1991. (Cancelled without replacement on May 31, 1996.)
MIL–F–83300, “Military Specification, Flying Qualities of Piloted V/STOL Aircraft,” December 31, 1970.
MIL-D-8708C (AS), “Military Specification, Demonstration: Aircraft Weapon Systems, General Specification for,” August 12, 1991.

Guides:

“Air Force Flight Test Center Test Plan Preparation Guide,” AFFTC-TIH-93-01, Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, California, May 1994, Revised February 1999.
https://myclass.dau.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/Courses/ Deployed/TST/TST303/Student_Materials/Student%20CD%20Jan17%20%28Obsolete% 20Update%20Pending%29/1%20US%20Air%20Force%20Guidance/AFFTC%20Test%20Plan% 20Guide.pdf
Brent Poulson, Linda Harrison, “The Author’s Guide to Writing Air Force Flight Test Center Technical Reports,” AFFTC-TIH-09-01, Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, California, August 2009.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA508732.pdf

Rating Scales

Closed Loop Handling Qualities (CLHQ)

Cooper-Harper Rating Scale

George E. Cooper and Robert P. Harper, Jr., “The Use of Pilot Rating in the Evaluation of Aircraft Handling Qualities”, NASA Technical Note D-5153, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C., April 1969.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19690013177

Workload

Bedford Rating Scale

Alan H. Roscoe, “Assessing Pilot Workload in Flight”, Paper 11 (Component Part AD#: AD-P004 109). In Compilation Report: Conference Proceedings No. 373. Flight Test Techniques, AGARD, Paris, 1984.
Paper only (better quality copy):
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADP004109
Full AGARD Conference Proceedings No. 373 compilation report (containing Roscoe’s paper as Paper 11 (AD-P004 109) on Page 179 of the PDF document):
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA147625

NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX)

Paper Version: https://humansystems.arc.nasa.gov/groups/TLX/downloads/TLXScale.pdf
iOS App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nasa-tlx/id1168110608
Manual (Version 1.0): https://humansystems.arc.nasa.gov/groups/TLX/downloads/TLX.pdf
Paper: Sandra G. Hart, Lowell E. Staveland, “Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of empirical and theoretical research”. In: Peter A. Hancock and Najmedin Meshkati (Eds.), Human Mental Workload, Advances in Psychology, Vol 52, pp.139-183 (1988).

Test Pilot Schools

Links to a few internationally recognized test pilot schools, and selected pages on their websites (for a full list of all schools, see this Wikipedia page):

National Test Pilot School (NTPS) in Mojave, CA: Can be attended by civilians, although most graduates of their 1-year professional program are military, due to its high cost. For civilians, in particular the NTPS short courses and their Master’s Degree in Flight Test Engineering / Flight Test and Evaluation (academic classes only, for ca. $50,000) are reasonably affordable.
- List of Courses, Prices, and Dates: Includes 1-year professional courses, as well as 2-week short courses and the Master’s Degree curriculum. Some of their popular short courses happen only a couple of times per year and are booked out a year in advance, so register early.
- Flight Test Engineer (FTE) Graduate Assistantship: 3-year program for recent engineering graduates, where you work as an assistant at NTPS and in exchange go through their FTE program, which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive to pay for without any external funding source. Offered every two years, highly competitive application process.
- TPS Preparation: Downloadable preparatory documents, including pre-TPS tutorials and the first two volumes of the NTPS Professional Course Textbook (Vol 1: “Math and Physics for Flight Testers”, Vol 2: “Aerodynamics for Flight Testers”). Take these sample volumes as an encouragement to consider pursuing a Master’s Degree in flight test engineering at NTPS (feel free to contact us with any general logistic questions how to set this up with them).
United States Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS)
United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS)
Empire Test Pilots’ School (ETPS)
Ecole du personnel navigant d’essais et de réception (EPNER)
International Test Pilots School (ITPS)

Flight Testing and Airplane Development Related Organizations

Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP):
http://www.setp.org
Society of Flight Test Engineers (SFTE):
http://www.sfte.org
Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA):
http://eaa.org

Practical Applications of Test Pilot Literature

These are advanced books for normal pilots, which are inspired by and derived from the results presented in test pilot literature. Mostly, only the description in words and some of the figures have been retained, with perhaps an occasional equation every now and then. For a derivation, in order to understand truly where things are coming from, one really needs to fall back on the highly technical literature above. However, the following books do offer practical applications of this theory, relevant for the pilot in everyday and emergency situations (whereas in the above works from USAF TPS and USNTPS discussions of flight are mostly focused on carefully setting up well controlled flight tests to measure a certain quantity in flight).

Bill Crawford’s Flightlab Course Notes: “Unusual Attitudes and the Aerodynamics of Maneuvering Flight” (2009):
http://flightlab.net/Flightlab.net/Download_Course_Notes_files/FLNotebookpdfs.pdf
H. H. Hurt: “Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators” (1965):
https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/00-80T-80.pdf

Reading Order Suggestions

Reading materials in the proper order and suitable for your background knowledge is key to understanding. We strongly recommend you give the USAF TPS Textbooks a try first. They are self-contained and pedagogically excellently written, and easily understood if you have the appropriate mathematical background. They also have several introductory chapters on all the math needed. Do not be deceived by their somewhat antiquated typesetting appearance, the core content has not changed fundamentally since 1986 (but beware of numerous typos, which have been fixed in newer versions).

You may then proceed to read the USNTPS Flight Test Manuals, which contain additional information or a different view angle in many instances. However, they are not written in a self-contained fashion and not really intelligible as a standalone source of study.

If you want to avoid all the math and/or are interested in practical applications to everyday flight and in particular upset prevention and recovery (UPRT), we recommend you start with (or read afterwards) Bill Crawford’s Flightlab course notes. You will get the main ideas, though you will sacrifice any derivations and proper understanding where all of this is coming from if you have skipped all the math.

Finally, H.H. Hurt’s “Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators” is a highly popular book even among civilian pilots, and in fact even listed by the FAA on its website among their handbooks. It is another work almost completely devoid of calculations and contains only occasional formulas, but goes much deeper than standard FAA training literature, and you will find it to contain a number of concepts and figures from test pilot school literature.