Chapter 6 - Flight Test Instrumentation

The purpose of a flight test instrumentation system is to acquire data about the operation of the test vehicle and provide the data to the data processing group. As a flight test engineer (FTE), no matter what discipline, the FTE needs to define the measurands needed for the assigned tasks to the instrumentation engineer. In general, a test article will support multiple discipline testing. Many measurands are requested by more than one user and the FTE needs to coordinate with engineers from other disciplines to define those measurands. Other measurands are exclusively the lead FTE's. All must be defined in detail. A great deal of detailed information is required to prepare and implement an adequate instrumentation specification. This section will provide some general information on the elements that make up an instrumentation system and provide guidance on where to find additional information. AGARDograph 160, the Flight Test Instrumentation Series of volumes, provides a wealth of information equally useful to the neophyte or journeyman engineer.