DO-160G provides standard procedures and environmental test criteria for testing airborne equipment for the entire spectrum of aircraft from light general aviation aircraft and helicopters through the “jumbo jets” and SST categories of aircraft.
DO-160G, officially titled Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment, is a living document of environmental testing standards for airborne equipment. DO-160G is maintained and published by the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics or RTCA.
Although it isn’t a government standard or regulation, DO-160G has been adopted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) since its initial publication in 1975.
According to an advisory circular (AC) published by the FAA in June 2011, RTCA / DO-160G has been used as an environmental testing standard for airborne equipment since as early as 1958, when it was known as DO-130.
The latest revision of DO-160 – DO-160G – was published in December 2010 and includes updates for test conditions, power input, radio frequency susceptibility, among other changes.
DO-160 environmental testing isn’t a hard-and-fast requirement for equipment used in or on aircraft. It’s merely a standard; however, it has been adopted not only by government entities but by numerous equipment suppliers, airlines and compliance testing facilities to establish an industrywide consensus on the quality and reliability of airborne equipment.
There are 23 test procedures in DO-160 such as temperature and altitude testing. This purpose of this test is to assess the performance characteristics of equipment when exposed to extremely high or low temperatures and varying altitudes.
This procedure includes 20 categories addressing the full range of environments known to exist in most aircraft types and installation locations.
Testing is performed by placing equipment into an environmental testing chamber, monitoring the effects on the equipment and recording results to determine pass or fail.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers DO-160G Training | Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment, a 2-day course that covers RTCA’s DO-160G standard for Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment.
DO-160G training course provides the knowledge applied to DO-160G and how its role in systems engineering processes including requirements, design, product certification and Technical Standard Orders.
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