Airplane of the Day

747 GE Propulsion Test Platform Victorville, California

How do you flight test a new jet engine? You mount it on a big, reliable airplane. 

I've run into a couple other flying testbeds. They are not very common.

Flying Test Beds

Boeing 757-200
Honeywell Flying Test Bed
Phoenix, Arizona

British Aerospace 111
Grumman Corp. Test Bed
Baltimore-Washington Airport
April 23, 2009

Canadair CL-600-2C10
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORP
McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
March 24, 2017
Tomás Del Coro

This trio of oddball aircraft just fell into my lap this morning. Previous to this, the only one I was aware of is this Russian job.

The Honeywell airplane is used for testing its business jet engines. The Grumman aircraft are used for testing avionics. Via FlightAware.

Making Jet Engines is Hard

IL-76 Flying Test Bed (FTB) in Russia

India has been trying to make their own jet engines for the Tejas jet fighter since 1986. In 1977 they did successfully design and build a jet engine. The GTRE GTX-35V Kaveri project isn't going so well. They have only gotten it to run for 73 hours on the flying test bed.