ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / Network loads close to Ethernet wire speed and latency sensitive data in a Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) system, represent challenging requirements for FTI network equipment. Loss of data due to network congestion, overflow on the end nodes, as well as packet latency above a few hundred microseconds, can be critical during a flight test. To avoid these problems, several advanced packet filtering and network optimization functions are required in order to achieve best possible performance and thus avoid loss of data. This paper gives insight into how to properly engineer an Ethernet based FTI network and how to use advanced Ethernet switch techniques such as Quality of Service (QoS) and rate shaping.