Maintenance Test Flights

[yaya]

Ever done a maintenance test flight at your airline or do you have separate mx pilots for that purpose? If so, did the mx guys ride along? Any restrictions or guidelines?

Details... Thanks...

 

[Prop2Jet]

Cover your arse.... Make sure they enter in the flight log the req. MX sign off for the test flight. Make sure you are willing to accept such a flight.....

 

[Guitar Guy]

Did a few check flights at my old regional. On one flight (a stall horn calibration flight), the mechanic rode along so he could tweak the setting on the avionics board. On another series of flights, maintenance did not ride along but were nearby as we flew out of a maintenance base.

 

[yaya]

We are doing a lot of these at my airline, and they are for the return to service checklist. Takes 1-2 hours.

 

[BankAccount=0$]

Done a bunch of MX test flights at my airline. It's part of being on reserve I guess. Mostly flap checks, and a couple of pressurization controller test hops. Sometimes one of the MX guy's will go along for the ride (one happens to be a pilot himself) but most of the time they are too busy to go if it's not required...

 

[SpoilerFault]

At the last company I worked for we (maint) almost always rode along on the flight test. I don't know if our SP's required us to or not. It's not that I wouldn't trust a crews word that everything is ok but I always prefered to fly with the aircraft if I was going to be signing off the return to service. Plus, if there were a problem I would have concise first hand knowledge of when the fault or failure took place.

 

[Rook]

Did a MX test flight on the CRJ. MX rode along and had us deploy the ADG to run some checks.

 

[91100 100 set]

I did a few ferry flights to return an aircraft from a heavy check. We were required to do a "test flight" which was only a quick lap in the traffic pattern, not enough time to reveal many problems. The return flight was usually 2 hours or so, and we usually found a few little issues (like the galley was completely empty!). The most notable was an improperly seated baggage door seal which resulted in being unable to reach the maximum pressurization differential, so we were stuck down low for the rest of the flight. Pretty tame stuff, but I'd rather not see anything too crazy, you know?

 

[rickair7777]

I got to do a variety, a lot of ADG drops. The best one was post-MX following control column problems on the FO's side...since I was an FO I got to fly it, headed to a VFR practice area. The problems had only occurred during large control deflections so, with Mx on board, I got to do near-aerobatic manuevers...in a CRJ.
:beer:

 

[Soverytired]

Like most things in aviation, a "test flight" sounds a lot sexier than it really is.

Basically, you take off and see if they fixed the stupid thing yet. No special training required.

I've always been more nervous about maintenance ferry permits . . . .those f'n mechanics will sign off anything to get it back to base, and you're the one who's butt gets in a sling if anything goes wrong.

"Careless and reckless operation" is a very broad brush.