Excitement and adventure are not on the typical line pilot’s agenda. Standard-rate turns, smooth power and configuration changes, and staying comfortably within the “envelope” mark an airline pilot’s professionalism. Sometimes, however, pilots are called upon to take aircraft to their limits, to demonstrate that normal and emergency systems are working properly, or to determine if everything was put back together correctly after the airplane was taken apart during heavy maintenance.
There is a bewildering variety of names for the types of ad hoc nonrevenue flights that aircraft operators perform, which include postmaintenance, airworthiness, aircraft-acceptance and end-of-lease check flights. However, a recent fatal accident and a rash of serious incidents have made one thing clear: The risks involved in these flight activities are higher than in normal operations.
This red flag prompted the industry to ask Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) to organize an international meeting t…
