Chase Plane?

[David Paule]

I'm indebted to you guys in particular and the other contributors to this discussion. Thanks very much, everyone.

Incidentally, that flight was the most fun I'd had flying recently.

And I've got to add that within the last couple of months, I had made a concerted effort to practice slow flight. You can't just wing it, as you pointed out. That experience sure came in handy.

Dave

[David Paule]

One thing we didn't think of would have been worth while.

With the chase plane in the air in the pattern, and the test plane taxiing out, we should have made a communications test. Add this to your test plan.

I had my headset volume turned down and didn't realize that. It was hard for me to hear things. But my co-pilot, Dallice, helped me there and later, back on the ground, we figured out what the issue was.

Dave

[David Paule]

Have the test plane take off with his transponder on and use your TCAS to verify that the transponder works. Then ask the test plane to shut it off.

In our case, he had it on the whole time and was the primary target my TCAS reported. It would have been more effective as a traffic clearing tool with test's transponder off.

The test pilot just asked about that -- I'd forgotten.

Dave

[nauga]

Here's one I rarely see addressed but (now) brief every time: Make sure lead (the airplane under test) understands that when he's transmitting he's not receiving. It's hard for dash-2 to tell lead he's streaming the last bit of oil along his belly when lead is talking about what a nice flying airplane he has. The details have been slightly altered to protect the guilty but the end result was predictable

...and we will also cover the difference between "abort", "knock it off", and "skip it" calls.