Washington, DC, January 25, 2019 – RTCA’s Program Management Committee (PMC) held its winter meeting approving three critical guidance documents, reviewing workplans for the Special Committees (SC), and incorporating changes to the various committee Terms of Reference (TOR) that reflect leadership and work plan changes.
Chaired by Chris Hegarty of The MITRE Corporation, the PMC is the RTCA oversight body charged with producing timely and robust standards and guidance documents to ensure interoperability of aviation systems and equipment. The standards encourage innovation and serve as the basis for meeting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. An important responsibility of the PMC is ensuring the operational application of the technical standards.
The Members of the PMC approved three standards covering the following areas:
Industry requirements for navigation databases for aeronautical use. This revision to User Requirements for Navigation Data refines the scope to navigation data, provides an overview of Performance Based Navigation (PBN) and System Wide Information Management (SWIM) concepts in relation to navigation data, defines a data catalog, expands the set of data quality requirements, and provides new guidance on procedure design and coding.
Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS). This updated MOPS for 406 MHz ELTs includes NASA research and development considerations for ELT crashworthiness, ELT power sources (primarily lithium), second generation ELTs, and inflight triggered ELT(DT) for Global Aeronautical Distress & Safety System (GADSS).
Combined vision systems technology for helicopters. This Minimum Aviation System Performance Standards (MASPS) for A Combined Vision Systems for Helicopter Operations does not provide “additional operational credit” and is not intended to change the helicopter’s existing operational capability or certification basis
The Committee also approved leadership changes for two committees:
- New company for Chairman and new Secretary for SC-135, Environmental Testing
- New Co-Chairman for SC-209 – Minimum Operational Performance Standards for ATCRBS/Mode S Transponder
And changes to the work plans of seven SC’s were approved. These included:
- SC-159 – Navigation Equipment Using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
- SC-186 – Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B)
- SC-213 – Enhanced Flight Vision Systems/Synthetic Vision Systems
- SC-214 – Standards for Air Traffic Data Communication Services
- SC-216 – Aeronautical Systems Security
- SC-228 – Minimum Performance Standards for Unmanned Aircraft Systems
- SC-222 – AMS(R)S Systems
Details from the December 13, 2018 PMC meeting are contained in a letter from Chairman Hegarty to FAA Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, Ali Bahrami.
