Call sign Airbus: how to train a flight test crew?

Did you know that since 1997, Airbus has run its own Flight Test School in Toulouse, France? Graduates become company flight test pilots or engineers, orchestrating vital development and customer acceptance flights. The class of 2026 includes French astronaut Thomas Pesquet (trainee test pilot) and aerospace engineer Andrea Grande (trainee flight test engineer). They give us the low-down in the video below, but first what does it take to make the grade?

While many of us can picture a flight deck or pick out a captain’s epaulettes, further from the public gaze is a group of aviators whose uniform is a jump suit and whose office is the unknown. 

They are the flight test crew: the professionals who push aircraft to the limit. To borrow from Tom Wolfe, they have the right stuff. 

Amongst those aspiring to join this rare breed are students at the Airbus Flight Test School (AFTS). It’s where ex-military top guns, veteran airline captains, experienced engineers and the occasional astronaut like Thomas Pesquet (class of 2026) come to learn how to operate development flights and nurse fixed-wing aircraft from the production line into service. 

The number of trainees per cohort varies according to Airbus’ ramp-up needs: more aircraft exiting the production line require more flight test pilots and engineers. Students are hand-picked and know exactly where in the company they will work upon graduation. 

Pesquet is the exception. His qualification would be useful for NASA’s Artemis crewed moon mission, were he to be selected. 

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One of only a handful of such centres in the world, AFTS was founded by Claude Lelaie, a former head of Flight Test at Airbus. It’s a partner of EPNER, the storied French test pilot school. 

EPNER experts oversee the exams each AFTS cohort takes at the end of its year-long programme, and it’s an EPNER diploma they receive. The AFTS is actually applying to become an Approved Training Organisation in its own right, enabling it to invigilate and grade the exams itself, albeit still with EPNER oversight.  

How to become a test pilot?

Unlike training for a commercial pilot’s licence, which focuses on repeatable safety procedures, test pilot training stretches the boundaries – literally pushing the (flight) envelope. That’s the origin of the expression. 

Students at the AFTS qualify in the ‘Class 2’ rating category, specialised in operating acceptance flights. That’s when a factory-fresh aircraft takes to the sky to test all its systems and its performance, within the flight envelope. To obtain a ‘Class 1’ rating and qualify as an experimental flight test pilot or engineer, AFTS students must study at EPNER for a further six months. 

The curriculum is divided into four phases over a standard academic year and is exactly the same for trainee flight test pilots and engineers. Among the Airbus aircraft they fly are A350-1000 and A321 test platforms, equipped with flight test instrumentation for data collection. 

• In the sky: Students spend September to November taking part in acceptance flights, learning their future trade, whether prospective  pilot or engineer.
• On the ground: The second AFTS term is spent tackling theory. This takes in aerodynamics, flight safety, human factors, meteorology and engine function as well as the basics of preparing, operating and analysing a test flight. Exams for this phase come at the end of January.
• Back in the air: Until May, trainees perform instructor-led ‘demonstration flights’ using light aircraft such as the Socata TB-20 or Diamond DA42. These are used to practice flight test techniques. This phase concludes with an assessment flight on board an instrumented aircraft, that each student must plan, organise and operate.
• The final stage: From May to June, the students perform ‘academic’ flights to prepare for the EPNER practical exam. If successful, they receive their diploma in person at the flight school’s base in Istres, southern France. 

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What does a test pilot do? Inside the experimental flight test crew

AFTS students have a tightly-defined assignment: to make sure a production aircraft is fit for entry into service. Experimental flight test crews, such as the Airbus teams who operate a new aircraft type or derivative’s first flight, play a different role. 

For them, a test mission is never a simple point-to-point journey, as anyone following on FlightRadar24 can see. These ‘development’ flights are a carefully choreographed, minute-by-minute experiment. Each new aircraft type or derivative, such as the A350F, faces rigorous testing before it even leaves the ground, but the sky is a whole new level.

An experimental flight test crew’s key missions include:

• Flutter: intentionally inducing vibrations at high speeds to ensure the wings and empennage remain structurally sound.
• Stall: flying an aircraft at the slowest possible speeds until the wings lose lift, ensuring the aircraft’s fly-by-wire envelope protection systems kick in to ensure a safe recovery.
• Environmental testing: taking the aircraft to the coldest (Canada), hottest (the Middle East) and highest (Bolivia) parts of the world to ensure parts and systems don't fail under extreme stress.

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Flight test pilot or engineer: what’s the difference? 

While the pilot is the one in the front seat, flight testing is a team sport. The cockpit is often shared with a flight test engineer (FTE). These are the two professions under study at the AFTS. 

The two work so closely that they can finish each other’s sentences. The pilot flies the manoeuvers; the FTE is the flight director, overseeing every aspect of the test and planning it down to the minute before it even takes off. On board prototype aircraft, experimental FTEs can be found in the cabin monitoring banks of screens displaying live sensor data and coordinating with the ground. They are responsible for data collection during the flight, and analysis after. It’s a vital role before, during and after each sortie. 

Away from the aircraft, the flight test community includes:

• Telemetry teams: Engineers on the ground who also watch live data streams to spot technical anomalies before the pilot even feels a vibration.
• Instrumentation specialists: Technicians who install kilometres of orange wiring on board prototype aircraft, the universal colour for test equipment, to measure everything from fuel flow to structural stress.
• Maintenance crews: Specialised mechanics who must keep prototypes in peak condition, despite the extra stresses and strains they undergo during flight testing.

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Training to test tomorrow’s technologies

The flight test crew’s mission isn’t just to prepare aircraft for delivery, or certify their airworthiness in the quest for ever-safer aviation. It is the front line on aviation’s decarbonisation journey. Tomorrow’s test pilots, FTEs and their colleagues on the ground will all put new propulsion technology such as the Open Fan or hybrid-electric systems through their paces, then readying them for decades of service. 

A place at the Airbus Flight Test School is the pinnacle of the profession. Whether students dreaming of adventure, pilots looking for a new challenge or engineers ready to conduct an entire mission from start to finish, this community is where the future of aviation is written.

Watch the interview with Thomas Pesquet and Andrea Grande to learn more