www.sfte.org

What is it that makes you an FTE? Is it sitting in the aircraft during tests? Is it expertise in evaluting flight test data?

What is your standard for being qualified as an FTE?

The SFTE Technical Council has been working on a guideline showing the many tasks FTEs accomplish, the roles we fulfill, and our qualification recommendations for various levels. The attached Excel spreadsheet - now in draft form- is posted on this forum for everyone's review & comments. This guideline is exhaustive & detailed. During your review, please consider all aspects, including tasks, credit rates & limits, and specified disciplines. Did we include to much or leave anything out? Do you weigh the value of training or experience differently? Please comment!

This guideline does not attempt to qualify FTEs for small aircraft vs. large aircraft. Instead, it details many tasks and technical disciplines involved. Some are unique to one type, but most are common to all programs.

The intent of this guideline is to provide FTEs and supervisors an internationally accepted means to plan & track career progression and justify FTE training or experience levels. This product provides guidelines based on the experience and judgement of many flight test professionals, but is not intended to be directive or mandatory. Each organization retains authority to adjust this SFTE-recommended content for its purposes.

Key elements of the FTE Qualification Guideline
• While suitable for formal certification use, SFTE strongly prefers this guideline be just that – a reference set of recommendations from which each organization may deviate to best suit its needs.
• This guideline is a living tool to be changed when needed.
• Exhaustive detailing of roles & tasks provide a “master listâ€

With the draft version sufficiently mature for external review, the SFTE Technical Council invites all FTEs and flight test organizations review this guideline to
a) ensure the roles & tasks are sufficiently exhaustive but not overly detailed.
b) critique the recommended values for earning and limiting credit at each level of qualification.

After circulating this guideline and achieving some maturity, SFTE will begin its final phase which expands the list in another dimension: depicting how different organizations collate the roles & tasks.
• Some organizations define a flight test engineer in narrow terms: the person who controls the aircraft configuration.
• Other organizations may define an FTE equally narrowly but differently: e.g. the person who flies in the jump seat between two test pilots.
• Another organization might use SFTE’s wide net for recognizing an FTE, but further subdivides them into specialty roles such as test conductor, aircraft coordinator, operation engineer, etc.
Inviting each organization to associate its job title adjacent to each role & task will provide a “Rosetta Stoneâ€

i agree