RTCA News

• Agenda Set for RTCA Annual Symposium
• RTCA Featured Training Program
• Message from the President – January 2012
• RTCA Headquarters

Agenda Set for RTCA Annual Symposium

An exciting line-up of featured speakers and information packaged sessions is set for the RTCA 2012 Annual Symposium addressing the theme of Advancing the Goals of NextGen. Aviation industry stakeholders from around the world will gather June 5 and 6, at the Washington, DC Convention Center to address what it will take to move NextGen forward.

The following Keynote speakers representing the FAA, a developer of aviation technology and an airline operator will cover the various facets of NextGen implementation.

For a list of the current and emerging issues being covered in the eleven informational sessions, as well as details for Symposium registration see http://symposium.rtca.org/

RTCA Featured Training Program

A diverse group of students, representing companies and organizations from the U.S. and around the world, helped launch RTCA's new "Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification" training course this spring. The three-day, highly interactive course was taught by two experienced professionals, John Charles Angermayer and Kent V. Hollinger from The MITRE Aviation Institute, who also helped design the course, which is based on RTCA's DO-178C.

The next course is scheduled for June 26-28, 2012, at RTCA. Visit http://rtca.org/training/DO-178C.asp for details and to register and future courses in 2012.

Message from the President – January 2012

The many volunteers who make up the public private partnership that is RTCA certainly have hit the ground running in 2012.  But before looking ahead, we should recognize the development of six new and five revised documents that were approved for publication by the Program Management Committee (PMC) in December.  These documents cover topics ranging from Software Considerations, to ADS-B applications.  The listing and description of available RTCA documents can be found here. Also in December, we said good-bye to our friend, Gilbert Amato, and welcomed a new friend, Abdoulaye N’Diaye, as the new Secretary General of EUROCAE.  Our partnership in the effort to implement harmonized standards continues to be an important priority as we move into 2012. Not even half way through January, we have launched a new Special Committee (SC-226) on aircraft audio systems and equipment, ably co-chaired by Don Hamilton, Alto Technologies and Allan Prince, Cobham Aerospace Communications, with Gregory Frye serving as the DFO.   SC-220, Automatic Flight Guidance and Control Systems will hold their final meeting as will SC-219, Attitude and Heading Reference Systems, both committees positioned to deliver final products to the March 2012 meeting of the PMC. We will be participating in the ICAO Technical Team meeting in France later this month, and the Future Aviation Challenge Team (FACT) meeting in March, supporting the efforts to finalize the details of the Aviation System Block Upgrades in preparation for the November 2012 12th Air Navigation Conference in Montreal.

Chris Hegarty, Chair, Program Management Committee leads the December meeting.   Jim Krodel, Co-Chair of SC-205 briefs the PMC on seven publications they developed.

Also this month, the hundreds of volunteers working on numerous sub-groups of the NextGen Advisory Committee (NAC) are putting in long hours to finalize a set of recommendations for the FAA that will be aired at the NAC’s February 3^rd public meeting (click here for the agenda) at the Florida NextGen Test Bed facility located at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.  Recommendations will be delivered in the areas of NextGen performance metrics, Metroplex capabilities and priorities and a DataComm roadmap. 

February promises to be just as busy, starting with the NAC meeting, and continuing with meetings of SC-203, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, SC-213, Enhanced Flight Vision Systems/Synthetic Vision Systems, SC-224, Airport Security Access Control Systems, SC-216, Aeronautical Systems Security, SC-206, Aeronautical Information Services Data Link, and SC-225, Small and Medium Sized Rechargeable Lithium Batteries and Battery Systems.

Looking to March, in addition to the numerous Committee activities, RTCA has teamed with The MITRE Aviation Institute and will be holding our first training on the new standards and recommended practices contained in DO-178C, Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification.Click here for more information on this exciting new offering.

I encourage you to get involved in the many activities ongoing at RTCA.  Together we can have a lasting and positive impact on the shape of the future air transportation system!

Be Sure to Update your Address Book!