By Ken Pole | August 19, 2015 Estimated reading time 7 minutes, 16 seconds.
Four Chinese test pilots and eight engineers recently travelled to Canada for training on seaplanes. ITPS Photo
When Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) test crews take the company’s huge AG600 amphibian on its maiden flight, expected next year, there will be Canadian input at the controls. Four Chinese test pilots and eight flight test engineers were in London, Ont., this summer for 14 weeks of intense training on seaplane flight test and certification requirements at the International Test Pilot School (ITPS).
ITPS president Giorgio Clementi is optimistic that the connection will lead to more business with China’s rapidly-expanding aircraft industry. “The customer wishes to train more crews and is well satisfied with our program,” he told Skies. “To test a heavy new seaplane, I believe a great deal more training will be required.”
Final assembly of the four-engine AG600 turboprop began in mid-July in Zhuhai, on the so-called Chinese Riviera. While Russia and Japan also have developed large modern amphibians, the AG600 is the biggest, with a maximum takeoff weight of 53.5 tons and a range of about 4,500 kilometres. While its stated missions are firefighting and search and rescue, it also has strategic potential.
But the focus at ITPS was strictly on civil operations, with the experienced Chinese students undergoing training in seaplane testing and certification. They were from the Chinese Flight Test Establishment in Xian, Chinese Aircraft Industries General Aviation in Zhuhai, and the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) in Beijing.
In addition to extensive classroom work, the Chinese trained locally on small amphibians and—in what Clementi called “a bonus”—spent six days flying the iconic Martin Mars water bomber owned by Coulson Group at Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island.
Built for the U.S. Navy toward the end of World War II, Hawaii Mars and Philippine Mars were purchased in 1960 by a consortium of B.C. timber companies and converted to water bombers. Coulson acquired them in 2007 and used them to fight wildfires throughout North America, most recently deploying Hawaii Mars in B.C. this summer.
Clementi had planned for the Chinese to fly a Bombardier CL-215, but always had the Mars in mind. Hearing that they were being stood down and potentially offered for sale, he reached out to Coulson. “It turned out that we could finance the annual inspection for the Hawaii Mars within my budget for this course, and make it airworthy,” said Clementi. A 22-hour flight test program was subsequently completed over six days in July.
Four Chinese pilots had the opportunity to fly the Mars aircraft from takeoff to landing. ITPS Photo
The ITPS president agreed that the Chinese crews’ time on the beautifully maintained and modernized Mars dovetailed nicely with the AG600 project. “The Mars actually turned out to be a real pussycat,” said Clementi. “It’s a very docile airplane, other than the engines (Wright 18-cylinder radials), which have two flight engineers to baby them.”
While ITPS has done some flight-test consulting in a Chinese aircraft in that country, the recently-completed Canadian course was the first with Chinese students. Asked about their preparedness, Clementi said they had extensive land-based flying and flight test experience, but a lack of seaplane time necessitated “giving them training equivalent to a seaplane rating before we could actually start talking about flight testing.”
The four pilots flew the Mars from takeoff to landing, working from a detailed plan presented to Coulson. “In land-plane mode, it’s just another heavy transport,” Clementi explained. “But the certification aspects that were of interest were stability and handling on the water, as well as determining the takeoff speed schedule, and engine-out handling and performance following an engine failure at various speeds during the takeoff run.”
Typical maneuvers included performing S-turns on the water. “That’s quite interesting on the Mars; it is a large airplane with lots of inertia, but still managed to surprise us!” Approaching and hooking up to a mooring, which is routine for Coulson pilots, evidently “takes some very deft throttle handling, which isn’t something anybody’s going to learn in a week!”
ITPS draws on a global network of 15 instructors, including a few local pilots and engineers, to complement its full-time core staff. “There aren’t many flight test experts in Canada who are unemployed or who can freelance, so I’ve relied quite a bit on the U.K. and some Americans for particular training elements,” commented Clementi. “Recently, we have added two Canadian helicopter test pilots to our instructor team. The locals and I provide the backbone instruction.”
John Turner, who was lead test pilot on the Eurofighter/Typhoon, among others, has been a regular ITPS consultant for three years, recently visiting for a couple of weeks from his U.K. consultancy to lecture on fighter avionics testing. Former Canadian astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason not only teaches academics at ITPS, but also instructs on aircraft such as the Czechoslovakian Aero L-39 Albatros jet trainer.
Clementi, whose flight test career spans nearly 30 years, previously ran Diamond Aircraft programs in London and Austria, as well as participating in test programs at Alenia Aermacchi, AgustaWestland, Embraer, and Indonesian Aerospace. He considers himself first and foremost a flight test engineer, even though he has piloted some three dozen aircraft and holds an Airline Transport Pilot Licence.
As for aircraft, ITPS operates a core fleet from London International Airport and has “access” to more than 55. “We want them to have the broadest experience,” said Clementi. “During a one-year test pilot and flight test engineer course, they’ll fly up to 20 types, including everything from light aircraft to supersonic jet fighters and anything in between, including heavy transports and UAVs, and we’ll teach them how to test those aircraft.”
