Wolfgang, Test Pilot, Military Air Systems
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What does a test pilot do? It would be easy to say: all sorts of pleasant things. But they are really very pleasant things – very interesting, very varied. You never know on Monday morning what you will be doing on Monday afternoon - and the same applies to every day of the week. It is all very eventful, often extremely challenging too, but always in a basically very positive environment – provided, and that is the crux, you consider not only the test pilots but the associated team.
My career history was actually relatively unspectacular. As early as 14 or 15 I already envisioned making a career in flying of some sort. However, at that stage I had no idea whether this would be with an airline or a more agile form of flying, military aviation. I decided that military aviation was really what I wanted shortly before my final exams at high school. I then applied to the air force, was accepted for an interview and finally signed a contract with the Federal Armed Forces. I then studied aeronautics before training as a pilot though. This was followed by flight training and after three or four years of active flying I thought to myself, flying is super, but you have also studied and is there no sensible way of combining the two?
I came to the conclusion that the only sensible option was to go into technical aviation which would effectively combine these two aspects. I was then lucky to be given the opportunity to join the defence technology unit, that is the official test unit - and I have now been at EADS for just over ten years.
The tasks are very complex. The contents of the tests can be entirely new, because you have never been involved in this type of testing before. You have to fly different types of aircraft, which are also used for different missions, these can be aircraft planned for use in air to land missions or air to air missions, and this leads to different aspects or tasks being tested. One day you perform lowest altitude flight testing, the next day you provide proof of flight safety after a depot inspection, in which you break the sound barrier at great altitude to qualify the aircraft accordingly. You prepare events such as the aeronautics exhibition in Berlin. The interesting thing about this job is that there is no such thing as a typical flight from A to B. Each flight starts and ends somewhere, but what happens in between is heavily impacted by what is being tested and this makes the flights extremely varied.
I have been involved in the Eurofighter programme since 1996 and have enjoyed each and every one of the more than one hundred flights with this plane immensely. How do you feel when you see a Eurofighter for the first time? First of all, that you have an almost optimal workplace. What impressed me most the first time was the aircraft construction, the interface between man and machine, the workplace offered to the pilot, getting the hang of this three-dimensional, highly agile office and feeling at home there. Also, discovering how easy the system is to use, to start the emergency power units, the engines, to start up the avionics, to taxi the aircraft and to fly it. It is impressive how intelligent and easy to fly the Eurofighter is, so that not only the interviewee, but every pilot who is lucky enough to be allowed to fly the plane enjoys it immensely.
I have never had the doubtful pleasure of having to use the ejector seat to exit an aircraft. Although there have doubtless also been situations in the more than four thousand flying hours I have accumulated to date in this type of aircraft, where everything did not go according to plan - an engine died, or a windshield burst at an altitude of twelve kilometres. Those were the most extreme situations in an otherwise relatively unspectacular history. Obviously, apart from the spectacular side of things, we also have routine business to handle. My colleagues and I typically have about 120 to 180 flying hours a year, maybe 200. The typical job performance per person and year is about 1,600, 1,700 hours – plus the odd additional task, which should not be ignored. You could say: Hey, what a great job he's got, he only has to work, i.e. fly less than a tenth of his hours of attendance – and the rest of the time he can sit around drinking coffee and chatting with colleagues... But that's not quite true, there are of course many additional activities, including groundwork for research and development, participation in simulations, programme meetings, comments on flight testing programmes, writing reports or commenting on them. Public relations is also part of our work. It is not enough for us to be convinced we have a super product, we also have to communicate this to the customer appropriately. And of course it wouldn't be particularly convincing if we sent an operator along to try and present the product.
