Flight testing is the process of putting a new plane or various parts of a plane through a variety of tests to ensure that they are safe, effective, and reliable for use in flight. Before an airplane leaves the ground, this is usually done in a variety of ways, including lab testing and ground testing. Several test engineers and one or more test pilots may be involved, with the aircraft or new devices being tested in the air. This type of test flight, also known as the maiden flight, is usually the final step in the flight testing process, and it can be quite dangerous.
Before a new aircraft or device can be accepted for general use, it must typically go through two types of flight testing: commercial testing and military testing. Commercial testing is typically reserved for new types of aircraft or parts of an aircraft that will be used in commercial flights, such as those that transport passengers or private cargo through airspace. Initially, test engineers and pilots working for the company developing the new craft or systems for commercial use perform this type of testing. After that, commercial flight testing is usually completed by a government agency acting on behalf of the country where the hardware will be used.
During the development of a new aircraft or system, military flight testing will typically involve governmental or military test engineers and pilots. Because the government pays for this type of development, there is usually a stronger government and military presence during testing. Military testing often includes the effectiveness of the aircraft or system in relation to military endeavors, whereas commercial development and testing often focuses on the safety and reliability of the product being tested. Military flight testing for a new type of spy plane, for example, would assess how well the plane avoids radar detection and, possibly, how well its systems capture images from high altitudes.
Regardless of the type of flight testing that is being done, there will usually be three distinct steps involved. The first stage of testing usually entails lab or theoretical testing, which involves putting new systems through their paces in a controlled environment or evaluating aircraft performance through computer simulations. This is usually followed by ground testing, which involves evaluating and testing the various systems while the aircraft is still on the ground. The final step in flight testing is the aircraft’s first flight, which evaluates how the systems perform in the air. This is extremely dangerous, and most flight test pilots are highly skilled pilots with extensive experimental aircraft training.