Testbed aircraft

These could be specially designed or modified from serial production aircraft.

New instruments wiring and equipment, a fuel system and piping, structural alterations to the wings, and other adjustments are needed for this adaptation.

The aircraft had a mid-fuselage cabin for test instrumentation and observers.

Twelve were built and provided to British aero-engine companies.

A large number of aircraft-testbeds have been produced and tested since 1941 in the USSR and Russia by the Gromov Flight Research Institute.

DB-3 testbed aeroplane of TsAGI for laminar wing profiles research (1940)
Sapphire turbojet engine fitted to an Avro 691 Lancastrian testbed (outer position), June 1954
McDonnell Douglas MD-81 testbed with experimental GE36 propfan engine
Yak-40 -based testbed aircraft with a hybrid powerplant