STANAG 3455 basic symbols for aircraft electrical circuits

What it is

What STANAG 3455 covers

STANAG 3455 is the NATO standardization agreement on basic symbols for aircraft electrical circuits. A STANAG is not itself a technical specification: it is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement one, and here the actual symbols live in one of two existing civil standards. The document states its aim plainly as being "to ensure commonality of understanding and use of basic symbols for aircraft electric circuits" across NATO nations, and participating nations "agree to implement" IEC 60617:2012 DB, "Graphical Symbols for Diagrams," or IEEE 315, "Graphic Symbols for Electrical and Electronics Diagrams." The two are alternatives: a nation's documentation can use either, not both.

This is Edition 6, promulgated 9 February 2023. It supersedes an earlier edition of this same STANAG, dated 24 March 2014.

Which standard to use, and how implementation works

The STANAG defines implementation narrowly and concretely. It "is implemented when the basic symbols for aircraft electrical circuits detailed in IEC 60617 or IEEE 315 are used in national documentation," and, just as importantly, "the standard used must be stated on the drawing or relevant documentation." That second sentence is the one checkable requirement the STANAG adds on top of the two civil standards themselves: it is not enough to use consistent symbols, the drawing or document has to say which convention it is following. Read plainly, that means the point of the agreement is interoperability between nations reading each other's aircraft electrical diagrams, not a new set of symbols to design against.

Neither civil standard is reproduced here. IEC 60617:2012 DB is obtained from IEC on its own commercial terms, and IEEE 315 is obtained from IEEE, in each case independently of this STANAG. The document itself lists "OTHER RELATED DOCUMENTS" as "None," so there is nothing else it points a reader toward beyond those two standards and the AAP-03 review procedure described below.

Who ratifies it, and how it takes effect

The mechanism that matters here: a STANAG binds a nation, not a supplier. Nations "are invited to examine their ratification of the STANAG and, if they have not already done so, advise the NSO of their intention regarding its ratification and implementation," and the national response is recorded in the NATO Standardization Document Database (NSDD). The agreement itself "is effective upon receipt for use by the participating nations and NATO bodies." A supplier or a drawing office meets IEC 60617 or IEEE 315, or this STANAG, only where a contract or a tender brings one of them in by name, not because the STANAG exists on its own.

How it's evaluated

No certification exists here, and the document names none. What it describes is a national ratification, implementation and review cycle: nations record their ratification in the NSDD, and the STANAG is reviewed in accordance with AAP-03, with the result recorded there too. Whether a given set of drawings actually and consistently states the symbol standard in use is the kind of thing a nation's own drawing-office practice or a customer's quality clause checks, not something NATO assesses centrally.

Standards it references

• AAP-03Background