FAA Approves Revised RTCA Document

February 28, 2006

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved RTCA DO-160E – Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment, as an acceptable source for environmental qualifications that outline airworthiness requirement compliance. The FAA made its declaration in a recently released advisory circular (AC 21-16E).

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-recognized DO-160E is a culmination of the RTCA Special Committee 135's (SC-135) three-year review of DO-160D, which was published in 1997. A new section on fire and flammability also was added to the new document, according to RTCA.

Specifically, DO-160E incorporates previous “D” version changes and additional new material in the following areas:

Vibration (Section 8):
- Fixed Wing Zone 2 features two new test curves.
- High Level Short Duration Category Test revised.
- Helicopter endurance test times were reduced and the unknown helicopter test procedure was reconfigured (Category U).
- Unknown helicopter test procedure (Category U2) was added as an alternative to revision D.
Power Input (Section 16):
- Variable AC power tests added.
- Harmonic emissions test method updated.
- A distorted AC sine wave test was added to all AC equipment.
Audio Frequency Conducted Susceptibility (Section 18):
- Step frequencies formula retooled
Vibration and Radio Frequency Susceptibility (Section 20):
- In-band exclusion for RF equipment was increased.
- An alternate reverb chamber calibration procedure was added.

Source: RTCA Inc.