The flight laboratory is a unique national facility with three single engine airplanes: 1. Piper Super Cub - a two seater a/c, 2. Cessna Skylane - a four seater and 3. Piper Saratoga - a six seater.

The flight laboratory runs courses in flight testing wherein students participate to collect, analyze and evaluate performance and handling qualities of the airplanes. Such courses are also run for the Aerospace Engineering students of other institutes - IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIt Madras, PEC Chandigarh and MIT Madras. Presently, under a project ARDB, selected students and faculty members are being imparted flying experience and opportunity to observe routines involved in various phases of flight, eg., take-off, climbing, landing, turning, etc. A project is also underway to instrument the six seater Saratoga airplane for on-board recording of aircraft motion and control variables and thereby make a variable quality flight data required for evaluation, etc. The flight laboratory also has several gliders and an active gliding center where students as well as any member of IIT community can become a member and aspire to reach the stage of getting his/her licence to fly the gliders.

Flight laboratory is actively involved in the research towards parameter estimation from flight data. Accordingly, the aircraft instrumentation is being upgraded. The expertise developed here are being shared with various aero agencies to contribute towards research and development in the field of flight testing.