jeffquitney

Naval Test Pilot School, NAS Patuxent River, MD 1959 US Navy Film MN-8613

Added 2020-04-07 20:33:23 +0000 UTC

THE ACADEMIC AND FLYING CURRICULUM RELATIVE TO TEST DIVISIONS AT NATC, AND THE FLEET.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Test_Pilot_School

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS), located at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Patuxent River, Maryland, provides instruction to experienced United States Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, and foreign military experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test flight officers in the processes and techniques of aircraft and systems testing and evaluation...

History

The school was established in 1945, when the Navy's Flight Test Group transferred from Naval Air Station Anacostia, Washington, DC to Naval Air Station Patuxent River and Test Pilot Training Division or TPT was established.

USNTPS is the primary test pilot school for U.S. Army aviators, as it is the only U.S. military test pilot school to offer instruction on rotary-wing aircraft. Class 1 graduated December 21, 1948. In 1957 the school's name was officially changed to the United States Naval Test Pilot School.

Milestones:

Rotary Wing Syllabus introduced in 1961

11 month syllabus established in 1973

Airborne Systems Syllabus introduced in 1975

Short Course Department organised in 1997

Training

The selection process is highly competitive, and applicants are chosen by a selection board. The curriculum accommodates three main specialities with two classes annually (11 months in duration):

fixed wing (pilot/engineer)

rotary wing (pilot/engineer)

airborne systems (Naval flight officer/engineer)

Training programme includes:

pre-arrival flight training in T-6 (NAS Pensacola), T-38C (Randolph AFB), H-72 and H-60 (WAATS, Marana, AZ)

530 academic hours

100 sorties/120 flight hours

about 25 technical reports

Instructional flow is traditional theory to practice: classroom, lab and simulation, exercise briefing and flight demonstration, later data flights with technical reports preparation, review/debrief/critique.

Notable alumni

Those include (by year/class of graduation):

Edward "Whitey" Feightner (Class 2)

Alan Shepard (1951)

Scott Carpenter (1954)

Jim Lovell (1958)

Wally Schirra (1958)

John Young (1959)

John Glenn (Class 12)

Pete Conrad (1958)

Richard G. Thomas (Class 31)

Alan Bean