test pilot
Sign in to saveaviator who flies new or modified aircraft to evaluate and certify its performance in test flights
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Léon Lemartin, the world's first professional test pilot, by contract to Louis Blériot, August 20, 1910. Jimmy Doolittle in 1928 with his Curtiss R3C-2, a year before he pioneered instrument flying Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1, first test pilot to break the sound barrier at Mach 1 in 1947 Neil Armstrong and the North American X-15 after a research test flight in 1960
A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “test pilot” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.