ABC’s of DO-178C for Military Aviation
For obvious reasons, worldwide militaries are quiet about their aircraft avionics and software. But the secret is out: DO-178C has stealthily taken over the world of military aviation! Since “ancient times” (50 years ago for aviation technology), worldwide militaries had developed their aircraft avionics using dedicated defense-oriented standards such as MIL STD 882E, 2167A, and 498, the alphabet soup of aerospace standards. Admittedly, military aircraft designers were very motivated to aerospace software and hardware standards which differed from commercial aircraft since it was thought that military applications were too specialized and different. Now, think about that: navigation, communications, flight controls, landing gear, displays … are they “really” that different between military and commercial aircraft? Simply put, they may differ in functionality of course but not in the process of “development” which is where the standards come in. Today, fighter jets (F-35, T-5...