JSF established an
Integrated Test Force (ITF) in which Contractor and Government/International Test Pilots operate togehter vice in separate domains of Contractor Test/Govt Developmental Test(DT)/Govt Operational Test (OT) taskings. This blurs the traditional lines, but allows better comms and supposedly less time and lower costs. Combined/Integrated Testing has been more and more popular mainly because of anticipated cost savings. Generally, you see more Contractor hands on in early stages with that giving way to more and more
Developmental Test Pilots and finally the
Operational Testers (most of Operational Testers are
not Test Pilot School grads as they are tasked to represent the Fleet level of experiene/perspective and fly production representative aircraft*).
*Rather than wait for first LRIP examples, combined DT/OT testing allows OT pilots to get familiar with aircraft prior to arrival of LRIP aircraft so there is no spool up time.
LRIP = Limited Rate Initial Production (Congress and DoD allow LRIP examples to be procured to provide enough production representative aircraft for OPEVAL (Operational Evaluation) by OT organizations that are independent of the Service Aquisition CoC and report to their HQ (
COMOPTEVFOR for Navy and
AFOTEC for Air Force), which in turn reports to OSD level Director of Operational Test & Evaluation.