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Flight Test: In Search of Boring Data

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The challenge being faced today in the Department of Defense is to find ways to improve
the systems acquisition process. One area needing improvement is to eliminate surprises in
unexpected test data which add cost and time to developing the system. This amounts to
eliminating errors in all phases of a system’s lifecycle. In a perfect world, the ideal systems
acquisition process would result in a perfect system. Flawless testing of a perfect system
would result in predicted test results 100% of the time. However, such close fidelity
between predicted behavior and real behavior has never occurred. Until this ideal level of
boredom in testing occurs, testing will remain a critical part of the acquisition process.
Given the indispensability of testing, the goal to reduce the cost of flight tests is well worth
pursuing. Reducing test cost equates to reducing open air test hours, our most costly
budget item. It also means planning, implementing and controlling test cycles more
efficiently. We are working on methods to set up test missions faster, and analyze,
evaluate, and report on the test data more quickly, including unexpected results. This paper
explores the moving focus concept, one method that shows promise in our pursuit of the
goal of reducing test costs. The moving focus concept permits testers to change the data
they collect and view during a test, interactively, in real-time. This allows testers who are
receiving unexpected test results to change measurement subsets and explore the problem
or pursue other test scenarios.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/608370
Date10 1900
CreatorsHoaglund, Catharine M., Gardner, Lee S.
ContributorsEdwards Air Force Base
PublisherInternational Foundation for Telemetering
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, Proceedings
RightsCopyright © International Foundation for Telemetering
Relationhttp://www.telemetry.org/

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