Submitted by the F/A-18 Public Affairs Office

The U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS) located at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland operates five F/A-18B two-seater Hornet aircraft as part of a year-long syllabus to train experienced pilots, flight officers, and engineers in the specialties and techniques of aircraft and mission systems test and evaluation. These five aircraft include the three oldest operational Lot IV aircraft, one Lot V aircraft currently undergoing Modification, Corrosion and Paint Program (MCAPP), and one Lot VIII. Organic mission systems tend to be earlier generation Hornet avionics packages mixed with some local instrumentation to provide evaluation and feedback tools for student evaluation exercises.

While the USNTPS's Hornet Swarm plays an essential and crucial part in the complex test pilot curricula, it has also been recognized that the aging aircraft have limitations based on their current avionics suites. One in particular, is the need to provide a more effective system to retrieve in-flight data from the F/A-18 Radar, FLIR and Cockpit instrumentation. LT Steve Crawmer, USNTPS Maintenance Officer (MO), has initiated an aggressive program to prototype and eventually integrate Fleet Standard Cockpit Video Recording Systems (CVRS) into the five aircraft. This initiative will provide USNTPS Hornets with fleet standard CVRS systems, thus eliminating the requirement for multiple evaluation techniques and unique support postures required by current multiple-source commercial systems.

The first step in the program was to propose and gain Naval Aviation Depot (NADEP) North Island Engineering support in the generation of the initial non-recurring engineering data that will be used to allow integration and system prototype in Lot V F/A-18B Bureau No 161707. Next, was to contract for the delivery of the required CVRS kits from Raytheon Technical Services, Indianapolis, Indiana. Finally, the acquisition Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) requirements had to be negotiated and funded with Naval Inventory Control Point (NAVICP) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Future efforts include the identification and subsequent modification of a spare canopy and inclusion of these aircraft under the existing AFC-207 applicability.

Incorporation of these systems will provide capable evaluation tools that will greatly enhance USNTPS's academic institution and thus provide future USNTPS graduates with the tools required to succeed in the dynamic and ever-changing test and evaluation world.