Family-Run Operation Competes With the Military : One-of-a-Kind Mojave School Teaches Fliers How to Be Test Pilots

A family-run school is undercutting its only competitor, the U.S. military, to train test pilots, that elite cadre who fly new aircraft to their limits of safety and performance.

The National Test Pilot School, believed to be the only civilian-run test-pilot school in the world, was opened in 1982 at the urging of aircraft manufacturers disturbed by the price Navy and Air Force schools were charging. The school has caught on with foreign governments and has had clients from at least six countries.

Veteran pilot Sean Roberts and his wife, Nadia, a former Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot, founded the school.

Tailored to Mission

“This needed to be done,” said Sean Roberts. “I’m competing with the military by offering a less expensive course that can, unlike the government’s program, be tailored for the job and the mission.”

The only other test-pilot schools in the United States are at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland and Edwards Air Force Base, about 10 miles from Mojave.

The military graduates 120 test pilots a year, charging its private-sector clients $800,000 each, according to Sgt. Lara Wray, a spokeswoman at Edwards. National charged $195,000 each to train 10 test pilots last year.

The family-style business operates out of Mojave Airport in the flight shadow of the Voyager, another private-sector effort that in December became the first aircraft to fly around the world without refueling.

‘Like Youth Revisited’

“It’s like youth revisited for me,” said instructor Jack Jannarone, a retired Air Force pilot. “You get to do all the fun things a pilot loves to do but doesn’t always get the chance to do in the Air Force, where they move you up and out of the way for the younger guys.”

National has two dozen helicopters, prop planes and older jets, amounting to a total investment of about $4 million.

“Almost man for man, test pilots out there in the free world come out of our military schools or one in Britain or France,” said U.S. Army Maj. J. R. Martin, chief of the Army’s plans and programs division at Edwards.

Martin contracts with National each year for an eight-week preparatory course for Army pilots about to enter test-pilot training at Patuxent.

‘Only One of Its Kind’

“Sean’s school is certainly the only one of its kind in the world,” he said.

The Robertses set up National after being approached by chief test pilots from Boeing Aircraft, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed who complained they couldn’t afford to send all their pilots to military schools.

National offers a six-month course at Mojave, or a combination of correspondence instruction and on-site training.

Rather than military capability flight testing taught by the armed services, National teaches Federal Aviation Administration certification and first-flight testing of aircraft.

More Foreign Pilots

Foreign governments have replaced American manufacturers as the school’s biggest customers. For security purposes, individual nations are not identified, but countries from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America have enrolled pilots.

National uses so-called low-performance aircraft for most of the training, rather than high-performance jets, which can cost $10,000 an hour to operate. Military schools use high-performance jets exclusively.

“We don’t have F-4s and F-16s, which the Air Force schools fly,” said Nadia Roberts. “But once you are a test pilot, you can test anything. We give them the knowledge, the tools, the education.”