Students Complete Qualitative Evaluation Flights in Polaris Alpha Jet

The smiles say it all! Our ITPS Canada FW2023B Masters Course Test Pilot students completed Qualitative Evaluation Flights out of Lakeland Linder International Airport, Florida in an Alpha Jet owned and operated by Polaris. Qualitative Evaluation, or ‘Qual Eval’ flights, allow our students to apply the knowledge and skills accrued throughout their course on an unfamiliar aircraft type in a one-off, time-constrained exercise.

Our students conducted a ground-based evaluation, followed by an airborne exercise conducting various flight test techniques under the supervision of Safety Pilot and former The Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) President Todd Ericson, himself a highly qualified and experienced Experimental Test Pilot. The Alpha Jet is an ideal aircraft for this type of exercise, exhibiting some unique performance and flying qualities characteristics for our students to evaluate, including aileron reversion at high Mach Number and short-field landing techniques. Many thanks to Ryan Scott and Todd ‘Leif’ Ericson of Polaris for facilitating this invaluable training experience for our next generation of flight test professionals.