Team The make-up of the Flight Test Team will vary with the organization and complexity of the flight test program, however, there are some key players who are generally part of all flight test organizations. The leader of a flight test team is usually a flight test engineer (FTE) or possibly an experimental test pilot. Other FTEs or pilots could also be involved. Other team members would be the Flight Test Instrumentation Engineer, Instrumentation System Technicians, the aircraft maintenance department (mechanics, electrical techs, avionics technicians, etc.), Quality/Product Assurance Inspectors, the ground-based computing/data center personnel, plus logistics and administrative support. Engineers from various other disciplines would support the testing of their particular systems and analyze the data acquired for their specialty area. Since many aircraft development programs are sponsored by government military services, military or government-employed civilian pilots and engineers are often integrated into the flight test team. The government representatives provide program oversight and review and approve data. Government test pilots may also participate in the actual test flights, possibly even on the first/maiden flight. See also Maiden flight Cooper-Harper rating scale Aerospace engineering Flight test engineer Flight test instrumentation Data acquisition system Tethered flight test List of aerospace flight test centres References Further reading Stephen Corda: Introduction to Aerospace Engineering with a Flight Test Perspective. Wiley, 2017, . External links Society of Experimental Test Pilots Society of Flight Test Engineers Flight Test Safety Committee Flight Test Society of Australia Airplane Stability and Control NASA Introduction to Flight Testing Cranfield University Subject Listing for Flight dynamics CAFE Foundation flight testing of general aviation aircraft (link corrected) a lot of current Flight Test programs (German) Source: FliegerWeb.com Flight Training Programs Module Aerospace system testing Aviation safety Product testing Articles containing video clips