AEROSPACETESTINGINTERNATIONAL.COMAPRIL 2015 |^29
Interview – Peter Chandler z
350 has taken all the good bits from
the 380 and improved them slightly.
“So the major change I suppose is
that the cockpit is much more user-
friendly now than it was in the 320,
330 and 340 cockpit layout. Pilots are
now required to cope with a much
more complex air traffic system than
before, so there’s a lot more types of
approach. It used to be that you would
do an ILS (instrument landing system)
approach, or you would do a VOR
[VHF omnidirectional range beacon]
approach, and that was it. Now, for
even small airports, there will be a
dozen different sorts of approach
including RNP [required navigation
performance], others based on GPS,
GLS, various noise abatement,
complicated routings, and so on.
So what the pilots are required to
do has become much more complex
and therefore the cockpit systems,
particularly within the flight
management system, have had
to adapt to that.”
THE CHANGES
Although test technology does seem to
evolve at a relatively slow pace, it has
changed the role of the test pilot and
the processes in which data is managed
with regard to the development of
aircraft. Is the test pilot becoming
redundant as software design and
downloads are increasing in efficiency?
Is the test pilot now just the bus driver?
Chandler disagrees, but explains in
detail that it is teams’ roles that have
changed in a short space of time, not
the importance of those roles: “Test
flying is still important, but it’s just
that the way we work is perhaps
different. A lot of the work we do is
collecting performance data, or
demonstrating and getting data. So a
lot of the performance side is basically
just flying the airplane very accurately
so that we get reliable data. But equally
there are quite a lot of things that we
do, particularly in the handling
qualities of the airplane, where it’s very
subjective – we want the aircraft to feel
right for pilots. As pilots, we are trying
particular maneuvers, seeing if the
airplane is responding as we want it to;
and when it’s not, then we go back to
the data to find out why it’s not and try
to work out what to change. So in some
areas the data supports us in refining
the characteristics and the handling ofthe aircraft, while in other tests we are
there basically just to fly the airplane
accurately to get the data. So it’s a bit
of a mix.”
So where has the emphasis changed
between the computer guys on the
ground and the pilots in the air? “I
suppose the big change is the amount
of data that’s now available. The data
collated 20 years ago would be taken
by people in the cockpit and pilots
actually writing down numbers as they
saw them on the dials, which of course
doesn’t happen any more because all of
that is recorded,” says Chandler. “But
the principle behind it is: first, you
need to have accurate data to support
the flight tests; and second, on some
occasions you need the technical data
to be able to explain various
phenomena. That really hasn’t changed
very much; it’s just the amount of data
we have and the way we collect it.”
But how involved are test pilots now
in the design process from, literally, the
ground up? Chandler is emphatic: “The
first thing to say is that the test pilots
are involved in the design process right
from the start. For example, with the
A380, right from when the program was
launched, virtually all aspects of the
cockpit design, and particularly theA DAY IN THE LIFE...
HOW DOES YOUR AVERAGE CHIEF TEST
PILOT DAY PAN OUT?
“I was in for the first meeting at 08:00
this morning, the second meeting was at
09:00. Both of those were actually more
management than flight test, which is not
typical for the test pilots here, but as the
chief test pilot, I have a lot of administration
for management to sign, as well as doing the
test flying. So a couple of meetings, then
some administration, catching up on emails,
and preparing a presentation that I’ve got to
give next week.“Then this afternoon
I’ve been flying an A330
for two hours, which was
just a production flight,
so an airplane off the
production line that’s
about to go into the
delivery phase. It was a
flight to check various things up at high
altitude and landing gear extension times,
and things like that.
“I generally work between 11 and 12 hours
most days.”“THE MAJOR CHANGE I SUPPOSE
IS THAT THE COCKPIT IS MUCH
MORE USER-FRIENDLY NOW
THAN IT WAS IN THE 320, 330
AND 340 COCKPIT LAYOUT”A350 XWB MSN1
first flight crew,
June 2013