The United States Air Force Flight Test Center Experiment in Experimental Design

George Kailiwai III, Air Force Flight Test Center Technical Advisor (AFFTC/CT), Edwards Air Force Base, California, USA

Abstract

Keeping true to US Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) motto of “Toward the Unexplored” and mission of conducting and supporting the research, development, test and evaluation of aerospace systems from concept to combat, senior AFFTC technical leaders are conducting an experiment on the applicability of design of experiments (DOE) as a possible test strategy for developmental test and evaluation (DT&E) flight test programs. To this end, AFFTC engineers have completed DOE orientation courses and a three-week course in basic statistics and DOE. The AFFTC then identified specific engineer technical experts as members of the AFFTC initial DOE cadre. Members of this initial cadre have implemented DOE as a test strategy to three USAF Test Pilot School (TPS) Test Management Projects (TMPs). Although these TMPs are still on-going, preliminary results show strong applicability to two of the three TMPs—Project HAVE NOT and Project START. The third TMP, Project LOST WINGMAN, is a classical DT&E flight test program with a gradual build-up approach in which the test team has chosen to use One Factor At a Time (OFAT), in which the number of factors and levels is kept to an absolute minimum, as the test strategy. Nonetheless, the Project LOST WINGMAN test team has created two DOE test matrices as secondary test objectives to acquire data on the applicability of DOE to these types of gradual build-up DT&E flight test programs. Since DOE as a test strategy continues to show promise, the AFFTC is continuing with training a second DOE cadre in the fall of 2005, and will use DOE for the next round of USAF TPS TMPs.