The National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University and RTCA have formed a partnership in which NIAR will develop and conduct training for RTCA, focusing on the testing standards for equipment installed on aircraft.
The “Environmental Testing for Airborne Equipment” course will cover the requirements for minimum standard environmental test conditions and corresponding test procedures for airborne equipment defined by RTCA document, DO-160G, Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment. The document pertains to the entire spectrum of aircraft from light general aviation, helicopters to large commercial airliners, according to officials.
“Providing training is an important part of what RTCA does to support the development and implementation of global aviation standards,” said RTCA President Margaret Jenny. “We are excited to team with the experienced experts at WSU-NIAR to offer this new training course.”
“Our staff has been working within RTCA guidelines to conduct testing for many years,” said Paul Jonas, director of NIAR’s Environmental Test Labs. “We’re pleased to get validation from RTCA of the high level of talent and expertise at the research institute.”
The four-day training class is for systems, hardware design, and test engineers, as well as certification specialists. It will focus on the Environmental Testing aspects necessary to obtain FAA certification by industry and other government branches.
The initial course will be conducted on Sept. 15-19 at RTCA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
RTCA is a private, not-for-profit association founded in 1935 as the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics. It is a public-private partnership venue for developing consensus on aviation modernization issues, such as NextGen.
NIAR supports the aviation industry by providing research, development, testing, certification and training services. Its laboratories include Advanced Coatings, Aging Aircraft, CAD/CAM, Composites & Advanced Materials, Computational Mechanics, Crash Dynamics, Environmental Test, Full-Scale Structural Test, Mechanical Test, Metrology, Nondestructive Test, Research Machine Shop, Virtual Reality and the Walter H. Beech Wind Tunnel. NIAR operates on a nonprofit budget and is the largest university aviation R&D institution in the U.S., located in Wichita, Kan., the “Air Capital of the World.”