Avionics Software is Expensive – But is it Worth It?

Post-Covid, flights are increasingly full and both Boeing and Airbus have huge backlogs of aircraft to build. Bottom line?  Aviation is booming, and not the sonic-boom type of boom. Pure economics and Dollars.  But did you know the software on a new A350 or Boeing 787 costs over $5B to develop for the first aircraft?  Ponder that:  $5,000,000,000.00

Why is aircraft software so expensive?  Because it’s complex involving over 10,000 developers worldwide, and must be “Certified”.  What is Certification?  The rigorous process of applying DO-178C and ED-12C (which is “DO-178C for European aircraft”) and also the new mandatory ARP4754B.  DO-178C and ARP475B are exceptionally rigorous and now fully mandatory standards applicable to commercial aircraft. Increasingly, military aircraft such as the U.S. Army’s forthcoming FLRAA (Future Long Range Attack Aircraft) also require DO-178C and ARP4754A for development.

DO-178C and ARP4754B increase aircraft safety but there is a cost.  A large cost.  A popular myth is that DO-178C and ARP4754A are too expensive. Actually, neither DO-178C or ARP4754A are cheap, as clearly they add huge additional costs for Planning, Development, V&V, Configuration Management, and Process/Quality Assurance.  But there are different Development Assurance Levels (DAL’s) ranging from DAL A as most rigorous to DAL E as least rigorous. DAL D certified software still has generally full planning, high and low level requirements, implementation, reviews, and full functional testing of all high-level requirements with traceability applied.

In addition, configuration management, quality assurance, and DER/CVE liaison are applied to Level D and above. Yet the costs of Level D are just 15% higher than medium-quality software developed by the likes of Apple and Microsoft (today; not the “old” you-know-who Microsoft) and  developed to equivalent CMMI Level 3+processes.  Why?  Because DAL D consists almost entirely of normal industry-standard software engineering principals.  And another consideration is that  many companies new to DO-178C or ARP4754B believe their previous efforts including planning, requirements, designs, test, and reviews must be re-done. This is emphatically not true.  In fact, a DO-178C Gap Analysis activity  (simply Google “DO-178C Gap Analysis”) will analyze the existing processes and work to leverage and reuse prior artifacts while identifying the “gaps” to meet ARP4754B and  DO-178C Objectives. (

DO-178C and ARP4754B (with its new Model Based Systems Engineering aspects) also require reviews (usually independently performed by a different engineer following a different process) for Level B and mostly independent for Level A) of all software development processes and artifacts.  DO-178C and ARP475A/B reviews must be formally approved  using DO-178C checklists and ARP4754B checklist (again, just Google those) to ensure all required Objectives are fully reviewed and with evidence. To reduce schedule and budget, most companies use automated DO-178C Templates and ARP4754A Templates/Checklists – use Google and you’ll see the best providers of such.

So yes, avionics is expensive.  But would you fly in an aircraft knowing your probability of death was the same as driving in a car?  Yes, look that up:  over 1M humans die in car crashes annually. Per kilometer per person, driving is 10X more dangerous than flying. Go DO-178C and ARP4754A/B!