Googling a Very Strong State Approved School

In order to provide a comparative benchmark, here's the highlights from the strongest and most remarkable state-approved school that I'm aware of: the National Test Pilot School in Mojave CA.

1. NASA Langley Research Center contracts for NTPS to teach a course for NASA on 'Piloted Handling Qualities Assessment Techniques'. They state "Only One Responsible Source, and no other type of supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements."
http://www.fbodaily.com/cbd/archive/1998/07(July)/28-Jul-1998/Usol002.htm

2. Society of Flight Test Engineers holds courses at NTPS
http://www.sfte.org/calendar.html

3. NTPS one of five test pilot schools in the world recognized by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots
www.setp.org/REQUIREMENTS.PDF

4. NTPS' director was chairman of the First Flight Readiness Review Team for Lockheed Martin/Korean Aerospace's new T-50 supersonic jet trainer
http://www.lmaeronautics.com/news/programnews/combat_air/t50/t50pr020419.html

5. Former NASA Administrator Goldin refers in Congressional testimony to educational materials produced jointly with NTPS.
http://legislative.nasa.gov/hearings/gold4-28.html

6. NTPS appears to be the only foreign member of Australia's Defense Teaming Centre
http://www.defence.gov.au/dmo/id/disc/NSW2000Syn3.pdf

7. Australian Senate testimony concerning the fate of Australian RAAF officers at NTPS (3 at the time) when the US State Department temporarily forbid foreigners from studying there.
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/FADT_CTTE/quest_answers/addest_ans/DEF_ans1_Feb00.pdf

8. NTPS' Alan Lawless wins Society of Flight Test Engineers' 2000 Director's Award
http://www.sfte.org/awards.html

9. NTPS wins 1996 Cross Award of International Test and Evaluation Association
http://www.itea.org/pages/profile-pastawardwinners.html

10. Former instructor inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor
http://www.intellesis.com/aerospacewalkofhonor/hon1998_shawler.htm

11. NTPS' Wineth Painter is co-author of 'Developing and Flight Testing the HL-10 Lifting Body: A Precurser to the Space Shuttle', NASA Dryden Research Ctr,. Report No. NASA-RP-1332
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/DTRS/1994/

12. NTPS granted an exemption from certain FAA regulations in order to fly its pushing-the-envelope missions
http://www2.faa.gov/avr/afs/exempt/EX5778B.DOC

13. California State Senate passed Sen. Pete Knight's Senate Bill 218 providing a tax exempt status for schools that provide one year master's programs in flight test technology or flight test science. (Knight is a former USAF test pilot.)
http://www.aerotechnews.com/starc/92997/100297d.html

14. Lecture by NTPS instructor at the U. of Quebec, Montreal
http://www.scad.uqam.ca/SCAD/Seminaires/DUPREY.html

15. NTPS staff attend courses at National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Aerospace Research
http://iar-ira.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/flyers/summer00c_e.html

16. Danish Air Force page that seems to be about one of their officers earning a masters degree from NTPS and earning an award.
http://www.flyvematerielkommandoen.dk/artikler_testingenior.htm

17. CNN story about US government security concerns about NTPS' training of foreigners (Pakistanis in this case) in advanced military technology
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/01/07/flight.school.grounded/

18. A followup on this security problem, which gives the NTPS enrollment for that term as 17. (Well below the smallest WASC accredited school.)
http://www.aerotechnews.com/starc/2000/140100/NTPS.html

19. NTPS is an educational member of AHS, the Vertical Flight Society
http://www.vtol.org/edumem.html

20. NTPS' Australian partner, Australian Flight Test Services Pty. Ltd.
http://www.afts.com.au/links.htm

21. ERAU spring break field trip to Antelope Valley includes stop at NTPS
http://aiaa.pr.erau.edu/past/Spring99/Spring99.html

22. Link on Canadian Forces AETE Cold Lake web page
http://www.dnd.ca/aete/links_e.asp

23. US Naval Academy course webpage refers to NTPS method for reducing GPS error
http://web.usna.navy.mil/~dfr/flying/horseshoehead.pdf

24. Cal Tech webpage giving links to aeronautical engineering institutions
http://www.galcit.caltech.edu/~padam/htmls/Academic_Institutions.html

25. The technical director for the Headquarters, Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Kirtland Air Force Base NM. is a NTPS graduate.
http://www.terec.gatech.edu/marlowe_bio.html

26. Saab test pilot on Saab/BAe Gripen fighter test program is NTPS graduate
http://www.gripen.com/article_calendar2003.asp

27. The Vice President, Lean Operations & Quality Assurance Air Combat Systems Northrop Grumman Corporation is a NTPS graduate
http://www.aerospaceoutlook.com/pamiljans.html

28. NTPS flies North American certification trials of Australian Gippsland Aeronautics GA-8
http://www.gippsaero.com/article.asp?articleID=406

29. Page about the Civilian Flight Test Center at Mojave Airport
http://www.mojaveairport.com/flight_test.htm

30. NTPS' commercial flight test sister organization, Flight Research Inc.
http://www.flightresearch.com/index.htm

31. Flight Research Inc. tests Leigh Aerosystems' 'Longshot' precision guided bomb
http://www.aerotechnews.com/starc/2001/011201/Leigh_Aerosystems.html

32. An article on the Longshot system
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/longshot.htm

33. Flight Research Inc. flies certification tests of L-3 Communications S/TAR solid state recorder
http://www.l-3com.com/cs-east/pr11.html

34. More on the S/TAR system which stores digitized reconnaissance imagery
http://www.l-3com.com/cs-east/programs/space/star/star-acc-ns.html

35. NTPS teams with Thunder City to start a South African test pilot school in Cape Town
http://www.thundercity.com/news.htm

36. Reference to NTPS in a NOVA TV documentary http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/xplanes/pilot.html

37. NTPS instructor Sean Coyle's book 'Helicopter Training Manual: Cyclic and Collective'
http://www.aerokurier.rotor.com/akNachr/AKNACHF/AenRote.htm

38. Australian RAAF officers train at NTPS
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/FADT_CTTE/quest_answers/addest_ans/DEF_indx_Feb00.pdf

39. A NASA paper coauthored by a NTPS instructor
http://www.aero-space.nasa.gov/library/datarate.pdf

40. An FAA link
http://www1.faa.gov/aar/reslib.htm

41. NTPS buys a custom radar training set from Camber
http://www.cambertx.com/TrainingSystems/

42. NTPS is training astronauts to fly Vela Technology's two stage suborbital manned spacecraft
http://www.aeroastro.com/Press_Releases/press_release_pre99/Space_Cruiser_release.html

43. Platforms International Corp's scheme for using RPV's as high altitude telecommunications repeaters
http://www.wbrtv.com/underwriters/platforms/

44. Derringer Aircraft Company at Mojave airport
http://www.derringeraircraft.com/company.htm

45. NTPS buys a synthetic aperture radar from Camber
http://www.camber.com/news/

46. NASA Academy program flies promising engineering students out to visit NASA Dryden and local sites including NTPS.
http://www.css.tayloru.edu/~physics/isgc/academy.html

47. A University of South Australia paper's bibliography includes National Test Pilot School 1995, Introduction to Performance and Flying Qualities Flight Testing
http://www.seecforum.unisa.edu.au/Sete2002/ProceedingsDocs/14P-Williams.pdf

48. An Air Force engineer at Holliman AFB is off to NTPS
http://www.njit.edu/old/rotc/AAS/Misc/Alumni/SarahKelly.html

49. NTPS participates in NASA Dryden's Science Odyssey educational program
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Education/Educator/SupportMaterials/Odyssey/workshop3.html

50. Page about NTPS' Saab Drakens (with photos)
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/drakens.htm

51. Flight Test Safety Committee weblink
http://www.flighttestsafety.org/links.html

52. Another graduate: QUANTAS' chief B-747 check pilot (he had that position before he attended NTPS, but he enjoys flying exotic jet fighters)
http://www.aircombat.com.au/html/pilots.htm

53. A NTPS instructor checks out the Augusta AB139 helicopter for Rotorhub.com
http://www.rotorhub.com/news/0306/ed06.htm

54. Article in 'Plane and Pilot' magazine
http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/content/pastissues/2001/jul/upset.html

55. Nadia Roberts of NTPS speaks at 2002 Women in Aviation Conference in Bombay India
http://www.ninety-nines.org/WIACON2002.html

56. A Briton visits the unusual Mojave airport, home of NTPS an a lot more, and checks it out (lots of photos of Tracor's fleet of F-4 phantoms)
http://www.sbas.ndirect.co.uk/html/bv05.htm

57. Never design a spaceship after taking LSD
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/photos/images/800/WK%20and%20SS1%20mated%20front%20left%20800.jpg

 

Tried it with another state licensed school from Wyoming and got 15,600 hits, and at hit 193 I got the first non-ad which was the first resume listing. 50 more I got a weird one that said the the school was in West Virginia.

Oh, well can't enroll in that school anyway as I live in California.

 

So Bill, why aren't they RA?

 

Because they don't need it, and have probably never applied.

 

I can only speculate.

1. Recognition by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots is professional accreditation of a very real sort, even if the SETP isn't a USDoEd recognized accreditor. What's more, the Federal Aviation Administration (the last word in American aviation) not only recognizes NTPS, they require some of their staff to take NTPS courses and FAA big-shots teach courses there. (One of the NTPS instructors is Chairman of the FAA's Flight Test Technical Committee.)

2. NTPS' total enrollment was given in a 2000 news story as 17. This is about half the enrollment of the smallest WASC accredited school (City of Hope, whose 33 student Ph.D. program is part of the long established research arm of a large medical center.)

3. NTPS' degree programs are new, only a few years old.

4. I'd suspect that a small institution of this sort doesn't really welcome all of the committees, self-studies and reporting that the regional accreditors insist upon.

5. This school already has the recognition of worldwide governments, militaries and its industry. I'm sure that its graduates have no trouble getting placed. In fact, given the fact that NTPS' tuition is $500,000/year, virtually all of their students are already corporate or government sponsored.

 

I'm not sure that RA would even make sense for this school. I didn't look at this aspect but I doubt that the test pilot credential covers some of the so-called "fluff" courses that typical academic degrees require. It seems that it would be closer to a vocational degree.

 

There probably aren't many RA schools, small or large, that "welcome" the above requirement for regional accreditation. They only endure the process because it is required.

 

Russell: " There probably aren't many RA schools, small or large, that "welcome" the above requirement for regional accreditation. They only endure the process because it is required."


Cehi: I agree. It is a lot of endurance to maintain for a voluntary process. Nevertheless, there are many, many benefits for volunteering for the process.

 

So, here is a school that successfully operates outside of the auspices of the US DOE, offering a respectable faculty and skills based training, performing its mission admirably in its chosen field: aviation. It has chosen CA state approval as sufficient for its quality assurance and has not pursued RA for its degree granting authority as other aviation schools have done such as Embry-Riddle, FIT, or Perdue (while these schools may not offer Test Pilot training they do offer FAA ratings up to the highly respected Airline Transport).

 

Minor correction, the CA state approval is "required" to be able to do business legally. Schools have to have it if they are not regioanlly accredited by WASC.

Even RA programs not accerdited by WASC must get CA state approval (see WASC directtory). To operate outside of this by "claiming" jursidiction inanother state is skirting the edge of the law.

 

As Mike points out, NTPS has to have CA-approval in order to legally operate.

Beyond that, I doubt if NTPS cares about CA-approval at all. It certainly doesn't represent their quality assurance. This school's quality assurance comes from the FAA, from the relevant professional associations and from meeting the needs of its demanding industrial, military and governmental clients.

Of course, NTPS' degree programs are less than ten years old and enroll ~20 students. That's half the size of the smallest WASC accredited school. NTPS might grow and eventually become RA, or then again, it might not.

My reason for posting on it was, first, to create a benchmark of what one of the best small state approved school's Google "footprint" looks like. It shows the kind of thing that's achievable. This can be used comparatively when trying to interpret the signatures of other unknown schools.

I wanted to show how the most powerful non-accredited programs seem to work best in "niche" situations, offering an unusual program that isn't easily replicated elsewhere, and where the school is already familiar among the specialized community that will be hiring its graduates.

I also wanted to make the basic point that a state-approved school can be very impressive. However unsual that is, it remains possible.

But I reject any suggestion that the impressive results for NTPS be generalized to apply to all state-approved schools. Non-accredited mystery schools have to be individually investigated and approached on a case-by-case basis. Each school stands or falls on its own merits.

 

I suggest that you use Copernic tather than Google. Google is one search engine constantly being modified. Copernic provides results from up to 20 search engines concurrently.