Handling Qualities Evaluation at the USAF Test Pilot School

Abstract

A contradiction lies at the core of handling qualities evaluations: The most complex subsystem of the handling qualities loop is both the least understood and most familiar system. This subsystem is, of course, the human body. A test pilot’s lack of understanding of the mechanisms involved in his cognition and motor control is only exceeded by the confidence he shows in his ability to report on them. Nevertheless, satisfactory handling qualities are vital for safe mission accomplishment so the USAF Test Pilot School (TPS) must endeavor to prepare its graduates to rationally conduct these evaluations. In the last five years, the USAF TPS has undergone a steady transformation in the education of its students for these tasks. This change has stemmed partly from changes in the foundational assumptions of how pilots control, partly from TPS research into objective measurements of pilot inceptor motion, and partly from the recognition that traditional pilot modeling approaches serve only as useful analogies that have little in common with the actual mechanisms of human cognition and motor control. This paper will review the history of handling qualities evaluations at the USAF TPS and describe how shifts in the foundations of the School’s understanding of pilot control have encouraged significant adjustments to the aircraft handling qualities curriculum. These adjustments are helping students better understand how their minds and bodies work and are helping them learn how to create and execute flight test techniques that more efficiently and accurately predict aircraft capability.