00 — Start here: build a defensible display qualification plan

DO-160 Display Qualification | A-P02 — Draft / Not Released

Learning objective: Identify the course outputs and the evidence needed to support them.

From a test list to a qualification argument

This course follows the display from panel and optical stack, through its enclosure and electronics, to the aircraft installation. It is for display engineers, technical buyers, program managers, test engineers and integrators. Familiarity with display construction and basic electrical quantities is useful. No aircraft sensor or radar hardware is qualified in these lessons. Controlled interface sources are used only to evaluate display behavior.

By the end, you will be able to allocate testing to the correct boundary, consider all 23 environmental sections of DO-160G, interpret representative numerical conditions, define measurable acceptance criteria, review supplier evidence, and assemble a test-contract package. The final exercise produces an applicability matrix, a temperature procedure outline, a monitoring plan, an installation checklist and an evidence index.

How to study

Read the public foundations first. Continue through the environment families, electrical tests, installed verification and contracting lessons. Complete the short exercises before reading their worked responses. Allow approximately 12 hours for the estimated lesson activities, including the capstone; a project-specific implementation and standards study can take longer. Lesson durations are study estimates, not laboratory exposure durations.

The numerical examples distinguish three things: an identified requirement from DO-160G, a selected category example, and an invented teaching requirement. Neither the selected categories nor the invented acceptance limits prescribe a universal cockpit display specification. The full adopted standard controls procedural details, tolerances, equipment and exceptions.

Your working file

Create five headings in your own notebook: installation assumptions; equipment boundary; environmental matrix; acceptance and monitoring; evidence and limitations. Carry the same example display through the course. Unknown aircraft inputs remain open requirements. Do not silently replace them with numbers from another product's qualification form.

This development edition uses DO-160G section numbering and identified FAA guidance. It provides engineering education and does not establish qualification, certification, competence authorization or product release. Course completion records do not replace an approved test plan, actual results or installation substantiation.