A bid to give Britain the capability to carry out full airworthiness tests on light aircraft after a break of 30 years has been completed successfully at the AMRC.

Top tier aerospace companies in the UK still can and do carry out the tests, but testing has become focused on their own aircraft and the capability for testing light aircraft made by independent designers has disappeared over the years.

That has all changed now that the AMRC’s Advanced Structural Testing Centre (ASTC) has successfully completed tests on the Game Bird 1 (GB1), a two-seater aircraft developed by Lincolnshire-based Game Composites and designed to carry out complex manoeuvres in aerobatic competitions or simply be flown for fun.