TAWS Flight Test under Complex Terrain Conditions

Abstract

Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) flight tests associated with terrain are highly risky, which requires careful preparation and may cause unexpected alarms. By clue of the problem that terrain advisory line moved back and forth in the Collision Prediction and Alerting (CPA) flight test of TAWS of a certain type airplane, the whole process of problem analysis and positioning, test procedure developing, rig test and ultimate success of flight test are presented and discussed. As lessens learned, several guiding principles for TAWS test under complex terrain conditions are summarized and proposed, providing the reference for similar flight tests in airworthiness certification.