Taking an aircraft from the drawing board to flight is a long and complex process, and the test pilot is a key player. The pilot is highly involved from the design stage through final test flights, serving as an integral partner for the aircraft manufacturer. What's it like to be the pilot who puts a brand-new plane through its paces? Executive Travel talked recently with Captain Mike Carriker, the chief pilot for Boeing's all-new 787 Dreamliner, which is expected to enter service in 2008.

What experience did you bring to this job?
I was a U.S. Navy Trained Test Pilot—I attended the USN Test Pilot School. After graduating, I taught there for a year and a half. Then I taught at the British Test Pilot School, ETPS, for two years as a flight instructor and a classroom instructor. I had about 4,000 flight hours when I joined Boeing.

What is a typical day like for a test pilot?
Our days vary as the different programs progress. Early in a program, it is all design meetings, design reviews and simulations. We focus on getting the details correct before building the airplane. When the airplane flies, then I will likely be flying four days a week. A flight test flying day is a long day with preflight, the flight, the post-flight debrief, then planning for the next day's events. Safety of flight is always the number one item I deal with.

How are aircraft tested?
Over the years, the requirements for certification have grown—and keep growing. Flight test programs for a new airplane now are about 2,000 hours of flight test. A new derivative of an in-production model may take 400 hours. Most flights are four to six hours long. Sometimes we don't even fly—like brake testing. In a 2,000-hour flight test program, I will probably fly 400 hours of it myself.

Where do you operate from?
Our base of operations is KBFI—Boeing Field in Seattle. We go to sites as needed for testing. Edwards Air Force Base; Roswell, New Mexico; and Glasgow, Montana are Boeing favorites. If we need high-wind tests, we go to Kevlavik, Iceland. The wind seems to never calm down there.

Who is aboard during testing?
We are required by law (FAA) to only allow people who are required for the test to be on board. No passengers of any sort. That means the pilots, a test director, flight test engineers to do data analysis, and people who look after the instrumentation systems. The crew is usually about 12 to 14 people.

What do you look for during a test flight?
The purpose of flight test is to show ourselves, the FAA and our customers that the airplane does what we said it was going to do. That it has the range we said it has. That it takes off in the distance we said it will. And that it meets the thousands of FAA regulations that are required to "show compliance." I have told customers that the radar will work very well, that the autoland system will land the airplane flawlessly in very bad weather. That we can fly in freezing rain that ices the airplane. My job, or any test pilot's job, is to guide the airplane through the series of demonstrations as effectively as possible.

What types of issues have you found in the past?
As hard as we try, we don't achieve full perfection at the first try. Many issues are fairly simple fixes; some even require flight test data to solve. It is always fun to get so many parts so interconnected to all play together. I think Boeing has the world's finest engineers, who have poured their hearts and souls into our jets. I have absolute faith in them giving the Boeing flight test pilot a wonderful flying airplane on the first day. There may be some details to be worked out, but they won't be major.

What's the most fun thing about the job?
The people—from Boeing, our partners in the program, our customers. I get to meet so many wonderful folks. And being part of aviation history. Jet aircraft have changed the world through inexpensive travel. And we plan to do it again.Is there anything you think our readers may find surprising about what you do? It seems that most folks assume that all I do is fly—after all, my job title is "pilot." But the design, develop and validate process before flying is at least 10 times more than the actual flying. Add in the time for the customer interactions and other program activities, and it is more like 25 hours of pre-work to one hour of my flying.