FAA part 23 methods of compliance for AOA warning/limiting systems

The FAA's Small Airplane Directorate has been working for years to address General Aviation (GA) safety and to create a regulatory environment that uses advances in technology to enhance GA safety, while reducing the effort, time and cost associated with the certification of new equipment. This paper presents suggestions for new methods of compliance for Angle-of-Attack (AOA) warning systems and AOA-limiting systems. The methods of compliance were derived from a flight campaign on the Technical University of Munich's fly-by-wire DA42 research aircraft. The team consisted of GA test pilots, experienced flight test engineers, research assistants, and college students. The project explored novel concepts for audio, visual and haptic AOA warning. Classic test-matrix approaches were compared to pilot-tracking tasks designed to put GA aircraft in conditions that activate AOA-warning or AOA-limiting systems. Lessons learned in the execution of this flight test program, as well as the system integration of the advanced technologies, are provided.