Wasting Money and Playing It Safe at the USAF Test Pilot School
By Roger Thompson
December 20, 2023
U.S. Air Force photo by Alexander Cook
In his 2015 book, Trials and Errors: Experimental U.K. Test Flying in the 1970s, former RAF test pilot Wing Commander Mike Brooke shows the reader just how the USAF’s risk aversion and desire to waste the taxpayers’ money manifested itself at the USAF Test Pilot School in 1982. He notes that contrary to standard RAF practice for test flights, the USAF required almost all test flights to be accompanied by chase planes, which is an example of playing it safe and avoiding risk that the USAF is notorious for doing since the Up or Out promotion system came into effect. He puts it this way: “We Brits did not use chase aircraft habitually but reserved the practice for photographically recording certain types of flight test profiles. Not only was it expensive but also it meant that if the chase aircraft went unserviceable then the test could not go ahead.” (pp. 243)
He continues: “This practice became a real headache for the tests that Edwards AFB was undertaking with cruise missiles. The count of aircraft required soon mounted: a B-52 launch aircraft, a spare B-52, one or two chase aircraft for the launch, a KC-135 tanker to refuel the chase aircraft and two specially equipped F-4s to chase and monitor the missile on its long flight from a launch position out in the Pacific to its target on a local bombing range. A minimum of seven airframes were to be available, ready, and manned and co-ordinated for the launch day. Only the Americans could do programmes like that!” (Ibid).
Again, we see the RAF believed that risk is part of test flying, and therefore it deemed chase planes to be used sparingly, and no doubt that was far more efficient than the USAF. In a previous article I noted how the RAF also allows its pilots to fly at very low altitudes as well, which is also risky, but with well-trained pilots accustomed to the flying conditions in the U.K., with its bad weather, it is manageable. The USAF, on the other hand, likes to put needless rules and regulations ahead of combat effectiveness. This, I would argue, needs to change if the USAF is to stand a chance against peer competitors like China in any future conflict, perhaps starting with an invasion of Taiwan.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/12/20/wasting_money_and_playing_it_safe_at_the_usaf_test_pilot_school_1000119.html
