Wichita, KS/Washington, DC, February 12, 2014 – The National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University and RTCA are pleased to announce a partnership in which NIAR will develop and conduct training for RTCA. The training will focus on the testing standards for equipment installed on aircraft to ensure performance characteristics meet aircraft certification requirements.
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.
“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.”
Developed for systems, hardware design, and test engineers as well as certification specialists, this four-day training class will enhance the attendees’ knowledge, understanding and skills in Environmental Testing aspects necessary to obtain FAA certification by industry and other government branches.
The initial course will be conducted on September 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 the premier public-private partnership venue for developing consensus among diverse, competing interests on critical aviation modernization issues in an increasingly global enterprise. www.rtca.org
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.” www.niar.wichita.edu
