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FYI, from the Avidyne forums ...
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(2 Jan 2014 Status Update):
Updates in red below. I stick by the externally consumable milestones earlier in this thread, namely:
1. Receive, and react accordingly to, the FAA-generated MPSUE assessment of the unit. This will likely drive some code changes but we won't know the magnitude until we get the official list from the FAA; Done. There are a few open items from that review but they won't be closed until TIA (described below). None are considered to be any risk and we view it as a formality that has to wait until the TIA flight test.
2. Achieve 100% DO-178B Code Complete status. This is well beyond "feature complete". DO-178B "Code Complete" means we've finished all the code review and requirement tracing of the code per the FAA-recognized software standard. We can't finish this until we know the code is done changing. Note that we're done with all the changes on our end, we're just reacting now to any mandated changes; Done. That was a giant nugget of DO-178 work and covered 1.2 million lines of code.
3. Officially declare DO-160 Hardware Qual testing to be complete; Almost done. Expect to be officially done by end of Jan. We had to re-do some testing once we looked at previous results and found there was a mistake in some of the initial test setup, thereby invalidating those tests. We view this additional testing to be no risk and just a formality.
4. Achieve "Red Label" status on the combined hardware/software system. This means that all formal for-credit software and hardware testing have been completed. In other words, this is a submittable-for-cert system; This is the complete focus of the team at this point. Everybody who can write and run format tests are doing that. As a refresher, DO-178 is the Software Development standard that certified avionics must comply with. It is a requirements-based development process that means every single line of code must be covered by a governing written requirement and every requirement must have an associated test written against it that proves the code does what the requirement calls for. We also have to show that every single line of code can be called and that the system performs in a deterministic manner - this is called code coverage. The software tests are also written to prove that every line of code gets hit. This final test phase is what we're consumed with. We have gobs of internal metrics that cover all aspects of this exercise but they are too far down in the weeds to provide here but this is the task that will determine when the system is ready for shipment.
5. Complete official company "for-credit" flight testing of the final submittable system; Waiting for #4 to conclude. This will take 2ish weeks to complete. Faster if good weather, slower if bad weather or maintenance issues. We'll start that exercise slightly before #4 is complete for some schedule overlap.
6. Complete FAA TIA (Type Inspection Authorization) testing. This is the FAA's final exam of the complete system before they sign off on cert. This one must wait until #5 is complete. No real way to make this non-serial. This one should take a few days.
7. Make our final submissions to the FAA of 100% of the certification artifacts.
You will also see in Patrick's update coming soon that we've found a way to run a pilot program ahead of official cert so that pulls in deliveries by 3-6 weeks. We've also found some internal build-out efficiencies in our factory that will pull in deliveries by another 4ish weeks.
S. Jacobson
We are pretty far in to the testing step described in #4.
I expect to be submitting everything to the FAA in Q1 and shipping in Q2.
S. Jacobson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(2 Jan 2014 Status Update):
Updates in red below. I stick by the externally consumable milestones earlier in this thread, namely:
1. Receive, and react accordingly to, the FAA-generated MPSUE assessment of the unit. This will likely drive some code changes but we won't know the magnitude until we get the official list from the FAA; Done. There are a few open items from that review but they won't be closed until TIA (described below). None are considered to be any risk and we view it as a formality that has to wait until the TIA flight test.
2. Achieve 100% DO-178B Code Complete status. This is well beyond "feature complete". DO-178B "Code Complete" means we've finished all the code review and requirement tracing of the code per the FAA-recognized software standard. We can't finish this until we know the code is done changing. Note that we're done with all the changes on our end, we're just reacting now to any mandated changes; Done. That was a giant nugget of DO-178 work and covered 1.2 million lines of code.
3. Officially declare DO-160 Hardware Qual testing to be complete; Almost done. Expect to be officially done by end of Jan. We had to re-do some testing once we looked at previous results and found there was a mistake in some of the initial test setup, thereby invalidating those tests. We view this additional testing to be no risk and just a formality.
4. Achieve "Red Label" status on the combined hardware/software system. This means that all formal for-credit software and hardware testing have been completed. In other words, this is a submittable-for-cert system; This is the complete focus of the team at this point. Everybody who can write and run format tests are doing that. As a refresher, DO-178 is the Software Development standard that certified avionics must comply with. It is a requirements-based development process that means every single line of code must be covered by a governing written requirement and every requirement must have an associated test written against it that proves the code does what the requirement calls for. We also have to show that every single line of code can be called and that the system performs in a deterministic manner - this is called code coverage. The software tests are also written to prove that every line of code gets hit. This final test phase is what we're consumed with. We have gobs of internal metrics that cover all aspects of this exercise but they are too far down in the weeds to provide here but this is the task that will determine when the system is ready for shipment.
5. Complete official company "for-credit" flight testing of the final submittable system; Waiting for #4 to conclude. This will take 2ish weeks to complete. Faster if good weather, slower if bad weather or maintenance issues. We'll start that exercise slightly before #4 is complete for some schedule overlap.
6. Complete FAA TIA (Type Inspection Authorization) testing. This is the FAA's final exam of the complete system before they sign off on cert. This one must wait until #5 is complete. No real way to make this non-serial. This one should take a few days.
7. Make our final submissions to the FAA of 100% of the certification artifacts.
You will also see in Patrick's update coming soon that we've found a way to run a pilot program ahead of official cert so that pulls in deliveries by 3-6 weeks. We've also found some internal build-out efficiencies in our factory that will pull in deliveries by another 4ish weeks.
S. Jacobson
We are pretty far in to the testing step described in #4.
I expect to be submitting everything to the FAA in Q1 and shipping in Q2.
S. Jacobson
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