>
> His application is an altitude lock for the autopilot he has been marketing
> for several years to the experimental aircraft market.  There are several
> levels of certification and non-certification for electronic devices for use
> in aircraft, and his autopilots are strictly in the experimental category,
> where it is pretty much up to the builder-owner of the aircraft as to what
> standards most of the instruments need to comply with.
>
> The FAA has many specifications, some of them very specific to a particular
> instrument such as an altimeter, and some much more general ones such as (I
> think I'm remembering the number correctly, but I am over 50, you know)
> DO-178B which specifies how software is to be tested for various levels of
> life-criticality.
>
I can kind of understand that though.
A friend of mine served his entire career in the New Zealand Air
Force. The nearest he ever came to instant death was when their
P3/Orion, going 500 knots at 50 feet over water, whilst on auto
pilot, suddenly tried to put them hard into a dive. The lightning fast
reaction of the Engineer (not the Pilots) saved them when he dived
on the controls.
Turns out a screw shorted a circuit board. The US had lost three
P3s whilst on autopilot which they couldnt pinpoint until this
incident. World wide P3 groundings until the problem was fixed.

Put me off avionics just hearing about it.



_____________________________

Lance Allen
Technical Officer
Uni of Auckland
Psych Dept
New Zealand

www.psych.auckland.ac.nz

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