Quote:
Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy
It totally depends on the test, the more critical the data the tighter the requirements. Performance data is very intensive, where flight conditions can have very tight tolerances on things such as altitude, angle of attack, stabilized airspeed, etc. Landing data is critical too with things like sink rate, angle of attack, and airspeed. Ultimately it's all difficult for the pilot to hit, so lots of tests are required to get enough data. I'm not one of the data crunching types so I don't know what specific statistical confidence interval they work to, but it's pretty tight and all subject to FAA review. There's a reason why airplanes are expensive and take years to certify.
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I believe the first live rocket ejection was done by a navy test pilot at low altitude and inverted while testing maximum speed of control in a super sonic dive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjUjGDDssLQ
Notice the loss of hair on ALL navy jet fighter pilots. Night Carrier landings in the clouds in a jet fighter were not kind to your scalp in those days!