Canadian Chapter Hosts 2026 Canadian Flight Test Symposium
The 2026 Canadian Flight Test Symposium was held jointly between SETP and SFTE on May 29th, welcoming over 110 attendees for great food, networking, and an incredible lineup of presentations.
The technical briefings offered a fascinating look at interesting ground and flight testing activities:
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Tim Leslie kicked off with “A Tale of Two Tails,” where he talked about the tail load monitoring system on the B747 flight test bed—a special system installed to keep in check the potential structural fatigue damage introduced by flying that beast in high AoA for prolonged periods of time!
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John Maris & Paul Vajda shared “Flight Testing the Voyageur Dash-8 Airborne Fire Fighter,” discussing the unique aspects of flight testing such a niche aircraft. Very interesting to see the connection between previous presentations by Jim Martin and the pitch effects of dropping the load.
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Chris Zhang gave a crucial look into the CAAC’s human factors certification hurdles when navigating complex FAA and EASA rule differences.
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Tim Doig, Conor Most & Billie Flynn wowed the crowd with impressive telemetry and video of the F-16's automatic pitch rocker recovering from intense 120°/s spins.
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Riley Carson walked us through CF-18 Centreline stores testing to eliminate asymmetric configuration, sharing a timeless reminder that flight test readiness is a perishable skill.
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Jim Watson detailed the quirks of testing the uncertified, V12 FADEC-equipped "Sealand Red Beaver" STC.
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Bennett Leong won the Best Presentation Award with “Flight Test Preparation for the ACE Aircraft”, covering the ground test steps they took so far to prepare for the upcoming first flight of their Advanced Controls Evaluator, which is an L39C with stock controls on the rear seat and completely new fly-by-wire controls on the front seat. The aircraft gained electric actuators on the elevator, ailerons, rudder, engine and flaps, which will allow ITPS to offer a wide range of exercises to the students. Bennett touched on points like resonance frequencies in the control chains introduced by the mod, the troubleshooting difficulties in pinpointing root causes between “legacy” and “new” systems and the importance of configuration control.
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Steve Huntley & Pete Earle closed with a hard-hitting Safety Brief on real-world mishaps, sparking a lively discussion about a potential future workshop on the subject.
Don't miss out next year—start planning for Ottawa in late May/early June 2027!
You can check out some pictures at this address: https://www.testpilots.com/