USAF Test Pilot School
The USAF Test Pilot School achieved another historic milestone, Dec.7, 2024, graduating the first year-long, fully integrated flight and space test course.
The Air Force Test Center established a three-month Space Test Course at TPS in 2019, prior to the inception of the U.S. Space Force, to address a pressing need for a highly talented, formally educated cadre of testers in the space domain. Almost immediately after its inception, then-Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin and Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson requested a year-long Space Test Course to match TPS’s storied Flight Test Course.
This is not the first time that TPS has been entrusted with multidomain test education. Between 1961 and 1972, TPS was charged with developing military astronauts in support of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program and was even renamed the Aerospace Research Pilot School. ARPS hand-selected graduates of the 6-month flight course to undergo an additional six months of advanced space flight training to include academics in orbital mechanics and flights up to 120,000 feet in the highly modified NF-104 aircraft model. By the end of the Apollo program, virtually all USAF astronauts in the program were ARPS graduates.
ARPS was established in under a year by a dedicated cadre of TPS staff, and the STC has followed in its predecessors’ aggressive footsteps. Over the past three years, TPS staff have established a new Astronautical Sciences branch, in parallel to the Flight Sciences branch, to provide graduate-level education in areas such as rocketry, orbital mechanics, and rendezvous and proximity operations. They have also incorporated multidomain academics into the Test Foundations and Mission Systems curricula, ensuring that students learn concepts such as test planning and electronic warfare testing from both the flight and space perspectives. All told, over two-thirds of the year-long course are common between the Flight and Space Test courses.
Additionally, TPS introduced the first space-focused test management projects this year, enabling STC students to plan, execute, and report on real-world test programs for commercial-off-the-shelf telescope farms and space domain awareness platforms being acquired by the U.S. Space Force. TPS staff also introduced space-focused capstone trips to Australia and other key stakeholders in the Space Force test enterprise to provide a wide perspective to the students.
Perhaps most importantly, the TPS staff introduced the school’s first-ever satellite operations in partnership with the Air Force Research Lab. Over the past year, the staff has built up qualifications to manage the XVI research satellite one week out of every month and is on track to open a classified operations floor which will dramatically increase its access to operational assets and hands-on training and test conduct exercises.
This new content was established even as TPS staff executed the elite Flight Test Course, preparing students for high-risk test across the full spectrum of aerial platforms, from fighters to multi engine to RPAs. Class 24A flew nearly 2000 flights in over 40 different aircraft types, constituting nearly half of all sorties flown annually at Edwards Air Force Base and making TPS the most complex air operations in the Department of the Air Force. Additionally, the FTC’s four test management projects, on which the STC is modelled, addressed a wide range of cutting-edge research topics including a classified DARPA project of national-strategic consequence and a test of autonomous guardrails in the X-62 fighter autonomy testbed.
The integrated Flight and Space Test Course encompasses 600 contact hours (of which two thirds are in common), 80 flight events and over 20 space events, dozens of reports and tests, and a comprehensive written and comprehensive oral examination. The Flight Test Course is an accredited Master’s program at 52 credit hours – by far the heaviest academic load of any academic program offered by the Department of the Air Force – and the Space Test Course is on track to receive Master’s accreditation in the 2025-2026 timeframe.
“The scope and depth of TPS’s multidomain mission are breathtaking, particularly when you consider that it accomplishes all this with a staff of little over one hundred people. Edwards Air Force Base is the center of aerospace testing, and TPS is the beating heart of Edwards,” said Brig. Gen. Douglas Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander.
Over the last several months, an advisory board of FTC graduates who have transferred over to the Space Force and are at the leading edge of space test, have evaluated the STC’s academic rigor as well as the scope and depth of its hands-on exercises. The board has reviewed exams, analyzed student scores, and observed the comprehensive oral examinations and test management project reports. The board found that the first year-long STC meets all the requirements of the Space Force. Based on this finding, TPS awarded the coveted graduate shield patch to both Flight and Space Test Course graduates during patch night earlier this month.
“It’s a fitting tribute to the school’s storied history and its extraordinary staff that, 50 years after ending the ARPS mission, the school is once again at the forefront of multidomain test education. The test community is rightfully proud of the exceptional accomplishments of TPS staff and students in forming multidomain test leaders for the nation,” said Col. James Valpiani, TPS’s current and 46th commandant.
Class 24A, otherwise known as the “Malhalanobians” for their cult-like interest in obscure technical concepts and devotion to test leadership concepts, include 24 Flight Test Course graduates and 8 Space Test Course graduates. At 32 students, it is by far the largest class in TPS history, far exceeding its historical average of 20-22 students per year-long course.
“Emerging and future warfighting capabilities are inherently cross-platform and cross-domain, which contrasts with the platform-centric model by which the Department of the Air Force has historically acquired, developed and tested. By forming fully integrated, multidomain test leaders for the Air Force, Space Force, and over 20 partner nations,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Cain, AFTC commander, “TPS is ensuring that our nation’s technical leadership is postured to rapidly accelerate integrated capabilities into the hands of our warfighters. TPS is leading the charge for innovation throughout the test enterprise, and I could not be prouder of their accomplishments.”
The 24A graduates will go on to serve across AFTC and Space Training and Readiness Command test units. “Space is an emerging warfighting domain, and our potential adversaries are moving at an extraordinary pace,” said Brig. Gen. Matthew Cantore, Space Training and Readiness Command deputy commander. “The Space Force needs highly talented test leaders to ensure our warfighting capabilities are ready to safeguard our national assets and ability to deter conflict. STARCOM is proud to partner with as storied an institution as TPS to form the next generation of space test leaders.”
The 32 elite graduates are, in alphabetical order by last name:
Capt. Mark Adams, Flight Test Engineer, 46th Test Squadron
Capt. Ismail Baumy, F-16 Test Pilot, 416th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Noa Bender, Flight Test Engineer, 416th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Justin Bishop, Space Test Engineer, 17th Test and Evaluation Squadron
Maj. Matthew Bliley {Senior Ranking Officer-Flight}, F-35 Test Pilot, 461st Flight Test Squadron
1st Lt. Michael Brittain, Space Test Engineer, 1st Test and Evaluation Squadron
Maj. Matthew Cale, B-1 Test Pilot, 419th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Joseph Christensen, F-16 Test Pilot, 416th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. John Despard, Flight Test Engineer, Operational Flight Program Combined Test Force
Capt. David Durham, Flight Test Engineer, Data Masked
Capt. Kaleb Exposito, Space Test Engineer, 3rd Test and Evaluation Squadron
Maj. Erling German, F-15E Test Pilot, 40th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Sean Ging, AC-130J Test Pilot, 417th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Jan Huertas, Space Test Engineer, 4th Test and Evaluation Squadron
FltLt Mitchell Jensen {Australia}, E-7A Test Pilot, Australian Defense Force
Capt. Michael Kostick, F-15E Test WSO, 40th Flight Test Squadron
Maj. Patrick Lewis, B-2 Test Pilot, 418th Flight Test Squadron
Maj. Kara Metty, Space Test Engineer, 17th Test and Evaluation Squadron
Capt. Justine Mullican, Flight Test Engineer, Data Masked
Capt. Dylan Muramoto, Flight Test Engineer, 418th Flight Test Squadron
1st Lt. Thomas O’Brien, Flight Test Engineer, 420th Flight Test Squadron
1st Lt. Kaleb Overby, Flight Test Engineer, Data Masked
Capt. Joshua Roseler, MQ-9 Test Pilot, 452nd Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Earl Louis Santos, Space Test Engineer, 1st Test and Evaluation Squadron
Capt. Joseph Springer, Flight Test Engineer, 417th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Nathanael Szuch, B-52 Test Pilot, 419th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Niles Tate, Flight Test Engineer, 413th Flight Test Squadron
Capt. Warren Tichenor, C-17 Test Pilot, 418th Flight Test Squadron
Maj. Joseph Tom{USMC}, F-18 Test Pilot, Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 31
Capt. Kevin Tran, Space Test Engineer, 3rd Test and Evaluation Squadron
Capt. Johannes Weinberg, F-16 Test Pilot, 40th Flight Test Squadron
Lt. Col. Dustin White {Senior Ranking Officer-Space}, Space Test Engineer, 3rd Satellite Communications Squadron
Celebrating the completion of class 24-Alpha from the Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB. This is a combined class of Space Force and Air Force personel. Maj. Gen. Cain and Brig. Gen. Wickert presided over the ceremony, handing out each idividual graduates certificate.